sort of difficult to begin to compose a blog after such a long hiatus. which is not to say there's nothing to report. i'm in ho chi minh city, for fuck's sake, there's too much to report. okay, that's a small lie too, i've been way too busy to initiate (or even partake in) much debauchery. but i have the rest of my life to make up for that. starting tonight! rugby games=broken bottles and knife fights. if i'm wrong on this, please don't crush my dreams by correcting me.
yesterday was the last day of my CELTA course here in ho chi minh city. hard to describe what the whole experience was like. it was simultaneously excruciatingly difficult and bearable. there were the obvious issues of time management and attempting to muster up the focus required of being a student again (albeit only for a month). but perhaps the most difficult thing about all of it was being surrounded by lots o' people that i have absolutely nothing in common with. sure, we're all taking this teaching course together so some strange force of nature brought us all together in ho chi minh city at this time for this common purpose, but that's a pretty small blip on the radar of my entire life.
i guess i should take a minute to explain what the fuck the CELTA is. it's a 4-week long teaching certification course. i was in a group with 5 other people and we went through 2 tutors in the course of 4 weeks, teaching 2 different levels of adults. tutors observed and assessed our teaching, and our peers smugly judged and nit-picked (okay, only some of them). i learned a lot of esl/efl teaching methodology, simply so i could be more effective and professional in my current career path of teaching english abroad. so that's that. in a nutshell.
there were initially 24 people on the course, but i think 1 or 2 dropped out along the way. of this number, about half of us could be categorized as young-ish, and the other half were older than my parents. so roles were already inherently assigned, simply by age. both of my parents are still alive, so it was strange to have some of these older folks patronize me, just like the parents i already have DON'T.
anyhoo, that was my biggest complaint about the course. seemed like groups were assigned simply to make things more difficult than they needed to be. but overall, i guess it was a rewarding experience. rewarding in that i will soon have an actual piece of paper issued by cambridge university that says i can now demand more money at whatever lucky school gets me in the future. woo hoo! time and money well spent. plus, it was an excuse to go to another country in asia. funny thing about that is that i've seen absolutely nothing of ho chi minh city aside from the walk to and from my school. i hope to get out and about starting next week. traveling north will ensue, in the company of two cool chicks from the course, mary and carli (representing south africa and kansas, respectively). the tentative plans cover halong bay, hanoi and sapa. sapa might be a bust as that area just had the shit flooded out of it a few weeks ago. we shall see. after that might head over into laos and then down to cambodia. this is all an idea in my head, there's been no fact-checking or timetabling. seems like both of those factors could quite limit this as yet fictional vacation. i guess just because countries are close together doesn't mean they can be frequented and then departed in a quick (or efficient manner). a travel agent should clear things up a bit.
anyhoo, this is all the bloggage that time (and a shopping date) allows me at this point. more celta/other asian country musings will ensue.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
more china
i'm sitting in the chinese version of a pc bong, but this one has two floors and significantly less smoke and ramen than its korean counterpart. there are rivers of sweat rolling down my back. and all i can think is "fuck, what the fuck will vietnam in july feel like?" i can't believe i actually used to play basketball in heat like this. so yes, the show me state games of my adolescence are what immediately came to mind the first day i wandered around this arguably remote city in china. a strange association...
feel like i should do some quick comparisons between korea and china before the newness wears off. so here, in list form (my favorite!) are some things i've noticed:
1. fashion and whatnot. not as many suits here in china. the nearly iridescent men's suit was as ubiquitous as the women's stiletto and frilly, doll-like dress. my guess is that fancy suits cost money, which is something china doesn't have a lot of. anyhoo, it's quite refreshing to see people who look, well, normal. people of all different sizes. people who clearly lack fashion sense and favor the functionality of their clothes (which in these days means not dying from heat stroke) over anything else. but don't worry, the whores in jules and rory's hood still sport heels, which, in a way, is functional since they spend most of their time on their backs...or knees...
2. modes of transport. let's see. i use my legs a lot, nothing too special there. but in the past week i've traveled by plane, train, taxi, strange archaic cart thing with a sputtering engine (pictures forthcoming), manual pedicab (and uphill at that, pedaled by a very strong 57 year old man), and the cheating pedicab with an engine. me likey pedicabs.
3. people. the people here are really friendly and seem shocked to see me, or me and jules and rory, or any group of foreigners. seem to be a relatively limited number of us here in this most populous country. it feels so much different to be pointed at and stared at here than it did in korea. here i'm quite aware of how foreign i really am to most people who see me. in korea the shock (and awe) of my presence was totally unwarranted and annoying.
4. foreigners. i haven't met a lot of foreigners (see #3), but the ones i met have been in a sort of professional capacity. i say "sort of" because i don't work for ef yet (fingers crossed for working with jules and rory). but it seems like china attracts a much different crop of people than korea did. they seem to have their shit together a little more than foreigners in korea and most of them take their jobs very seriously. there actually seems to be some sort of methodology to teaching that i've seen at the two ef branches i've visited. i'm very excited about the chance to get my celta and then actually, immediately use the techniques in a professional setting, as people at both ef branches actually talked about teaching in teacher terms. a little intimidating, but it also makes the "i'm an english teacher" line feel like less of a sham.
so this was from the other day. a few days later now, and i have the pleasure of internet usage at jules and rory's apartment now. i've also been offered the job at ef in jiaxing after i finish my course in vietnam. fuck an a.
i'm not feeling very long-winded today, which shocks even me. but i would be remiss not to mention how fucking therapeutic it feels to be in this new country with people i actually like. seriously, this hot apartment in a small-ish chinese town is exactly the mental health sanitarium i needed. who'd've thunk. i like words (real or imagined) that have two apostrophes in them.
feel like i should do some quick comparisons between korea and china before the newness wears off. so here, in list form (my favorite!) are some things i've noticed:
1. fashion and whatnot. not as many suits here in china. the nearly iridescent men's suit was as ubiquitous as the women's stiletto and frilly, doll-like dress. my guess is that fancy suits cost money, which is something china doesn't have a lot of. anyhoo, it's quite refreshing to see people who look, well, normal. people of all different sizes. people who clearly lack fashion sense and favor the functionality of their clothes (which in these days means not dying from heat stroke) over anything else. but don't worry, the whores in jules and rory's hood still sport heels, which, in a way, is functional since they spend most of their time on their backs...or knees...
2. modes of transport. let's see. i use my legs a lot, nothing too special there. but in the past week i've traveled by plane, train, taxi, strange archaic cart thing with a sputtering engine (pictures forthcoming), manual pedicab (and uphill at that, pedaled by a very strong 57 year old man), and the cheating pedicab with an engine. me likey pedicabs.
3. people. the people here are really friendly and seem shocked to see me, or me and jules and rory, or any group of foreigners. seem to be a relatively limited number of us here in this most populous country. it feels so much different to be pointed at and stared at here than it did in korea. here i'm quite aware of how foreign i really am to most people who see me. in korea the shock (and awe) of my presence was totally unwarranted and annoying.
4. foreigners. i haven't met a lot of foreigners (see #3), but the ones i met have been in a sort of professional capacity. i say "sort of" because i don't work for ef yet (fingers crossed for working with jules and rory). but it seems like china attracts a much different crop of people than korea did. they seem to have their shit together a little more than foreigners in korea and most of them take their jobs very seriously. there actually seems to be some sort of methodology to teaching that i've seen at the two ef branches i've visited. i'm very excited about the chance to get my celta and then actually, immediately use the techniques in a professional setting, as people at both ef branches actually talked about teaching in teacher terms. a little intimidating, but it also makes the "i'm an english teacher" line feel like less of a sham.
so this was from the other day. a few days later now, and i have the pleasure of internet usage at jules and rory's apartment now. i've also been offered the job at ef in jiaxing after i finish my course in vietnam. fuck an a.
i'm not feeling very long-winded today, which shocks even me. but i would be remiss not to mention how fucking therapeutic it feels to be in this new country with people i actually like. seriously, this hot apartment in a small-ish chinese town is exactly the mental health sanitarium i needed. who'd've thunk. i like words (real or imagined) that have two apostrophes in them.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
china grove
i am in china. so there.
it's hot and there's a strange squeaking sound in this computer place, so i'm not in the mood for lots o' typing.
it's hot and there's a strange squeaking sound in this computer place, so i'm not in the mood for lots o' typing.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
"that's just, like, your opinion, man."
well, i guess it's been a while. but not without good reason. i've had the misfortune of being ass-deep in a bunch of logistical bullshit lately. and for those of you who've never been in that position, it's not a fun one.
for starters, i'm getting the fuck out of korea (yes, let's all let out a giant, rallying cry together!). that happens on the 28th of this month. which means that my current job did not, in fact, make me an offer i couldn't refuse. if i thought nearing the end of my first solid year at one job in korea would make me feel validated, happy, satisfied and/or more like a teacher--or i guess any other amalgam of generally positive things--i was sorely mistaken. the fact is, i can't wait to leave. with increasing frequency i find my days colored by the overwhelming urge to punch strangers, acquaintances and pretty much everyone i come into contact with in their fucking face[s]. and yup, that's probably not healthy. but let's examine these feelings, shall we?
wait wait wait. don't want to "blow my wad" all at once (yes, i typed that. as much as i love sexual euphemisms, some of them are just better (or worse) than others. case in point: i find the term "blow my wad" completely derivative and banal. so what does that make me? hmmm...). so first things first, it seems appropriate to expound on the aforementioned logistical woes.
there's a little event going on this summer known as the beijing olympics. in other words, "the event that has seriously tried to fuck up my world." i'm starting this CELTA course on july 21st in ho chi minh city. my job here in the korea finishes on june 25th. so that adds up to an ample amount of time to do something besides work for 6 fucking days a week at a place where i'm underappreciated and that sucks a little more of my ever-waning soul each day (apparently the jobby job replaced the soul chunks with chunks of melodrama. woo hoo.).
my favorite people in the world just happen to live in china. seems pretty convenient. after all, the last time i flew to china to visit jules and roar, it consumed far less time than my usual subway commute. so the first step in all of this was to add more pages to my passport, in preparation for my new visas. went to the embassy in seoul, got the pages in a day. easy enough. and free. and uber-patriotic (seriously, the new pages all have america-loving tripe printed all over them. AMERICA: FUCK YEAH!).
after that, i thought it would be as easy as going to the travel agent with my passport and a lil' wallet picture to get my chinese visa. just like the other two times. then i found out that i had to have proof not only of my flight into china, but proof of my departure from china as well. because of the olympics. fucking sports.
flight to china from korea was no problem. but the flight into ho chi minh city from shanghai was a total bitch to find. i attempted to book 4 different flights--one of which required some execution of my more than rusty spanish skills (yeah, i know. spanish for a flight to vietnam? it's all part of the nightmare that has been my last few weeks...)--and each of them were confirmed then cancelled. yikes. so i have been doubly panicking--1) oh god, i'm not going to be able to get to china to see jules and roar; 2) oh god, i'm not going to be able to get to this program in vietnam that i already paid for. there was also the 2 day train ride from beijing to ho chi minh city, but again, olympics fucked that all up. 2 days ago expedia.com rocked my world. i've got bonafide PAPER tickets en route to my apartment as i type this. old school shit there. sweet tits! hallelujah! thank you, jesus!
so yes, on the 28th, i will be going to china (visa in progress now. cross your fingers) until the 18th of july. then i fly to ho chi minh city. start my course on the 21st. after 4 weeks i have a lot of free time before i head back to china to work with jules' school. so now i need to start planning some more in-depth vietnam travel, along with the very real possibilities of laos and cambodia. sort of strange to wrap my brain around the fact that i am going to do all of this. and yeah, all by my lonesome. that's cool enough to warrant a smiley emoticon.
:)
oh yeah, but i still have to mail all of my possessions to china. let's just say one tends to accumulate many things over the course of 2 years...but even the relatively small amount of purging i've done has felt really good. molting off the badness of my past year. so i guess this segues nicely into the less than forgiving stance i've taken on korea.
list form seems like an appropriate way to burn one's bridges (assuming any koreans and/or fucking annoying foreigners in korea read this). truth be told, i've been trying to give korea the benefit of the doubt for the past two years i've been here. and yes, there are some people who defy my own educated stereotypes, but these are the [arguably unhealthy] observations i've made:
1. ethnocentrism. living amongst a culture that is so immersed in itself for this past year has taken a very tangible toll on me. sure, there are people in america who are staunch patriots and skinhead racist types, but here it's sort of overwhelming (uh, they're not skinheads. but they are racists. i'm done acknowledging what i've come to accept as a very dismal fact in my usual friendly-type way). koreans are so proud to be korean that they shun all other cultures or just make fun of everything about different cultures that makes them so, well, different. it's the most disturbing in the context of my job. any time there's a picture of someone who's not korean, there's immediately a barrage of stereotypes that would never be accepted or ignored in an american classroom. then there's all the shit i pick up on that's not in english (either through my admittedly limited knowledge of the korean language, or through body language). the worst part of all of this is that the korean teachers, some of whom might have actually earned both respect and friendship from me, don't do anything to curb such behavior. one teacher said "they're young. they don't understand." i guess i don't think 4th and 5th graders are that young. they're not too young to be fluent in english, so why are they too young to attempt to appreciate the myriad cultures that employ that language? the point is, with all the fucking foreigners in korea, it doesn't seem at all justified or acceptable to point at another human and say "other." i also don't agree with the implication that it's okay to hate other cultures, or just grossly misunderstand them, up to a certain age.
this ethnocentrism also begs the question of "why the fuck are you learning english if you don't actually have any desire to leave your perceived korean utopia?" and yes, i know english in korea is all inextricably linked to government regulations, standardized tests and overbearing mothers, but i don't think the average korean kid has any concept of the large (and varied) world beyond his/her own meager borders. i guess that's where i really feel like i've failed as a teacher. ever the idealist, i thought that being my charming [albeit different] self could convince students that language enables travel and adventure and an actual "world" view and all the things that motivate me (or used to before i hit this most recent wall) on a daily basis. uh, yeah. failure. bummer, yo.
2. cultural identity. this ties in closely with the ethnocentrism. for a country that co-opts everything that is japanese, chinese and/or vaguely western, they sure still hate all these places. funny to hear little kids talk about how much they hate japan. or how terrible china is. never mind the fact that the haircuts, fashion and food are japanese; the language is dumbed-down from mandarin/chinese (the chinese didn't seem to have a problem with their language, and i doubt they're all geniuses...), with some butchered english "cognates" thrown in for good measure. i guess this is more about how families instill values in kids. for a long time i didn't listen to led zeppelin because i seem to recall one of my parents saying they were overrated.
3. vanity. you can't fully understand this until you've been in the elevator with a korean. or sat next to a korean on the subway. i'm not just talking girls here. the perpetual adjusting, applying, preening, straightening, pouting, photographing of an entire country. it's exhausting to witness. not even worth further explanation. again, not totally understandable unless one has been to korea.
4. work ethic. seems to be some confusion over the concept of efficiency. here, it's not so much about getting the job done as it is about putting in the time. i think the average korean is a glutton for punishment, simply because "that's the korean way." i've heard this so many times in reference to the long hours people put in at work. but how much of that time is spent simply for the sake of appearances? this should more accurately be labeled confucianism or collectivist culture, but i wouldn't want to imply that everything about a collectivist culture is bad. i don't think it is completely, but it does serve to foster this worker bee attitude (if one allows oneself to enjoy their life, that person is obviously not working hard enough for the greater good. the greater good being hard to define, but from what i've gathered, i guess it's just the image of hard-work, even if that hard-work is actually just a lot of sitting around. definitely quantity over quality round here).
it also perpetuates stereotypes--if one person thinks something's bad (be it another culture or cutting out of work once the actual job is finished), then it must be. a person could find out for him/herself, but that's not how koreans roll. this collectivism pervades every aspect of daily life--from the communal lunch to the girl passed out in a bathroom stall surrounded by her own vomit. you take your meals/drinks together, and you can only leave when everyone else does.
5. foreigners, ex-pats, whatever the fuck we want to call ourselves in korea are inherently fucking douche-bags. except for me. that warrants another smiley :) uh, yeah. the vast majority of foreigners i've met here are weird, alcoholic, misogynistic, overbearing and/or cliquey losers. and if you're not at least one of these things when you get here, you sure will be by the time you leave. i'll gladly wallow in my solitude, because the alternative is soooo much worse. my point is, i'm pretty great. yeah, i know.
6. extreeeeeeeeme homogeneity. sort of the link of all these societal ills (aside from number 5...). everyone looks the same. i guess the concept of homogeneity is not one that really warrants too much explanation. all cities look the same. all the people dress the same (be they college girls or old women, they've all got their unofficial uniforms). the standards of beauty are all the same. the bars are all the same. the food all tastes the same. everything here is "same same."
i suppose 6 seems like a solid number of complaints, and this is long enough. i guess i need to make my overriding points here...i think no one has the right to complain about anything unless they've been intimately acquainted with it. so i guess in some ways i feel like i've earned the right to makes these critiques.
perhaps it's hypocritical of me to talk about xenophobic little kids in the context of my own arguably stereotypical diatribe and whatnot. but i don't think so. i came here with the best of intentions, with the same genuine starry-eyed wanderlust that i can only hope beautifully "afflicts" everyone on the planet at some point. and yes, there have been some amazing experiences in korea, but the frequency with which they happen has been in decline from the onset. the wanderlust was instead replaced by this feeling that my own life in korea was something i had to "endure" to become a better, stronger, more charismatic person. i'm done giving this country the benefit of the doubt and feeling guilty about the less than stellar review i've given it.
i'm excited about vietnam. i'm excited about china. i'm excited about the opportunity to live elsewhere and about the chance to do so in a simpler way. i've made a lot of money in korea (or at least more than i could have made stateside). but instead of any sort of relief i assumed this would give me, i've become consumed by finances and materialism. i hate that part of me. there are days when the idea of what is considered physically beautiful repulses me, when the idea of wealth repulses me, so much so that i want nothing more than to look disgusting or to burn a large wad (there's that word again!) of money, simply because it would be something different.
i'm ready to be done with very obvious manifestations of wealth. always been a bigger fan of subtlety (in pretty much all aspects of life). and poverty. i mean, if you want to talk about building character, i'm sure there's nothing better than being dirt poor...just ask someone who's dirt poor.
i guess it's my blog. i don't need to attempt to further justify my own opinions. let's just say it's been a rough year. and the goal when i came here was not to be more bitter. i am stronger (that's a nice, vague word when you think about it), but not without a cost. i guess it will take time to figure out whether it was worth it.
oh yeah! i was in a car accident on saturday night with my co-teacher. her car is slightly fucked, but no one was hurt.
for starters, i'm getting the fuck out of korea (yes, let's all let out a giant, rallying cry together!). that happens on the 28th of this month. which means that my current job did not, in fact, make me an offer i couldn't refuse. if i thought nearing the end of my first solid year at one job in korea would make me feel validated, happy, satisfied and/or more like a teacher--or i guess any other amalgam of generally positive things--i was sorely mistaken. the fact is, i can't wait to leave. with increasing frequency i find my days colored by the overwhelming urge to punch strangers, acquaintances and pretty much everyone i come into contact with in their fucking face[s]. and yup, that's probably not healthy. but let's examine these feelings, shall we?
wait wait wait. don't want to "blow my wad" all at once (yes, i typed that. as much as i love sexual euphemisms, some of them are just better (or worse) than others. case in point: i find the term "blow my wad" completely derivative and banal. so what does that make me? hmmm...). so first things first, it seems appropriate to expound on the aforementioned logistical woes.
there's a little event going on this summer known as the beijing olympics. in other words, "the event that has seriously tried to fuck up my world." i'm starting this CELTA course on july 21st in ho chi minh city. my job here in the korea finishes on june 25th. so that adds up to an ample amount of time to do something besides work for 6 fucking days a week at a place where i'm underappreciated and that sucks a little more of my ever-waning soul each day (apparently the jobby job replaced the soul chunks with chunks of melodrama. woo hoo.).
my favorite people in the world just happen to live in china. seems pretty convenient. after all, the last time i flew to china to visit jules and roar, it consumed far less time than my usual subway commute. so the first step in all of this was to add more pages to my passport, in preparation for my new visas. went to the embassy in seoul, got the pages in a day. easy enough. and free. and uber-patriotic (seriously, the new pages all have america-loving tripe printed all over them. AMERICA: FUCK YEAH!).
after that, i thought it would be as easy as going to the travel agent with my passport and a lil' wallet picture to get my chinese visa. just like the other two times. then i found out that i had to have proof not only of my flight into china, but proof of my departure from china as well. because of the olympics. fucking sports.
flight to china from korea was no problem. but the flight into ho chi minh city from shanghai was a total bitch to find. i attempted to book 4 different flights--one of which required some execution of my more than rusty spanish skills (yeah, i know. spanish for a flight to vietnam? it's all part of the nightmare that has been my last few weeks...)--and each of them were confirmed then cancelled. yikes. so i have been doubly panicking--1) oh god, i'm not going to be able to get to china to see jules and roar; 2) oh god, i'm not going to be able to get to this program in vietnam that i already paid for. there was also the 2 day train ride from beijing to ho chi minh city, but again, olympics fucked that all up. 2 days ago expedia.com rocked my world. i've got bonafide PAPER tickets en route to my apartment as i type this. old school shit there. sweet tits! hallelujah! thank you, jesus!
so yes, on the 28th, i will be going to china (visa in progress now. cross your fingers) until the 18th of july. then i fly to ho chi minh city. start my course on the 21st. after 4 weeks i have a lot of free time before i head back to china to work with jules' school. so now i need to start planning some more in-depth vietnam travel, along with the very real possibilities of laos and cambodia. sort of strange to wrap my brain around the fact that i am going to do all of this. and yeah, all by my lonesome. that's cool enough to warrant a smiley emoticon.
:)
oh yeah, but i still have to mail all of my possessions to china. let's just say one tends to accumulate many things over the course of 2 years...but even the relatively small amount of purging i've done has felt really good. molting off the badness of my past year. so i guess this segues nicely into the less than forgiving stance i've taken on korea.
list form seems like an appropriate way to burn one's bridges (assuming any koreans and/or fucking annoying foreigners in korea read this). truth be told, i've been trying to give korea the benefit of the doubt for the past two years i've been here. and yes, there are some people who defy my own educated stereotypes, but these are the [arguably unhealthy] observations i've made:
1. ethnocentrism. living amongst a culture that is so immersed in itself for this past year has taken a very tangible toll on me. sure, there are people in america who are staunch patriots and skinhead racist types, but here it's sort of overwhelming (uh, they're not skinheads. but they are racists. i'm done acknowledging what i've come to accept as a very dismal fact in my usual friendly-type way). koreans are so proud to be korean that they shun all other cultures or just make fun of everything about different cultures that makes them so, well, different. it's the most disturbing in the context of my job. any time there's a picture of someone who's not korean, there's immediately a barrage of stereotypes that would never be accepted or ignored in an american classroom. then there's all the shit i pick up on that's not in english (either through my admittedly limited knowledge of the korean language, or through body language). the worst part of all of this is that the korean teachers, some of whom might have actually earned both respect and friendship from me, don't do anything to curb such behavior. one teacher said "they're young. they don't understand." i guess i don't think 4th and 5th graders are that young. they're not too young to be fluent in english, so why are they too young to attempt to appreciate the myriad cultures that employ that language? the point is, with all the fucking foreigners in korea, it doesn't seem at all justified or acceptable to point at another human and say "other." i also don't agree with the implication that it's okay to hate other cultures, or just grossly misunderstand them, up to a certain age.
this ethnocentrism also begs the question of "why the fuck are you learning english if you don't actually have any desire to leave your perceived korean utopia?" and yes, i know english in korea is all inextricably linked to government regulations, standardized tests and overbearing mothers, but i don't think the average korean kid has any concept of the large (and varied) world beyond his/her own meager borders. i guess that's where i really feel like i've failed as a teacher. ever the idealist, i thought that being my charming [albeit different] self could convince students that language enables travel and adventure and an actual "world" view and all the things that motivate me (or used to before i hit this most recent wall) on a daily basis. uh, yeah. failure. bummer, yo.
2. cultural identity. this ties in closely with the ethnocentrism. for a country that co-opts everything that is japanese, chinese and/or vaguely western, they sure still hate all these places. funny to hear little kids talk about how much they hate japan. or how terrible china is. never mind the fact that the haircuts, fashion and food are japanese; the language is dumbed-down from mandarin/chinese (the chinese didn't seem to have a problem with their language, and i doubt they're all geniuses...), with some butchered english "cognates" thrown in for good measure. i guess this is more about how families instill values in kids. for a long time i didn't listen to led zeppelin because i seem to recall one of my parents saying they were overrated.
3. vanity. you can't fully understand this until you've been in the elevator with a korean. or sat next to a korean on the subway. i'm not just talking girls here. the perpetual adjusting, applying, preening, straightening, pouting, photographing of an entire country. it's exhausting to witness. not even worth further explanation. again, not totally understandable unless one has been to korea.
4. work ethic. seems to be some confusion over the concept of efficiency. here, it's not so much about getting the job done as it is about putting in the time. i think the average korean is a glutton for punishment, simply because "that's the korean way." i've heard this so many times in reference to the long hours people put in at work. but how much of that time is spent simply for the sake of appearances? this should more accurately be labeled confucianism or collectivist culture, but i wouldn't want to imply that everything about a collectivist culture is bad. i don't think it is completely, but it does serve to foster this worker bee attitude (if one allows oneself to enjoy their life, that person is obviously not working hard enough for the greater good. the greater good being hard to define, but from what i've gathered, i guess it's just the image of hard-work, even if that hard-work is actually just a lot of sitting around. definitely quantity over quality round here).
it also perpetuates stereotypes--if one person thinks something's bad (be it another culture or cutting out of work once the actual job is finished), then it must be. a person could find out for him/herself, but that's not how koreans roll. this collectivism pervades every aspect of daily life--from the communal lunch to the girl passed out in a bathroom stall surrounded by her own vomit. you take your meals/drinks together, and you can only leave when everyone else does.
5. foreigners, ex-pats, whatever the fuck we want to call ourselves in korea are inherently fucking douche-bags. except for me. that warrants another smiley :) uh, yeah. the vast majority of foreigners i've met here are weird, alcoholic, misogynistic, overbearing and/or cliquey losers. and if you're not at least one of these things when you get here, you sure will be by the time you leave. i'll gladly wallow in my solitude, because the alternative is soooo much worse. my point is, i'm pretty great. yeah, i know.
6. extreeeeeeeeme homogeneity. sort of the link of all these societal ills (aside from number 5...). everyone looks the same. i guess the concept of homogeneity is not one that really warrants too much explanation. all cities look the same. all the people dress the same (be they college girls or old women, they've all got their unofficial uniforms). the standards of beauty are all the same. the bars are all the same. the food all tastes the same. everything here is "same same."
i suppose 6 seems like a solid number of complaints, and this is long enough. i guess i need to make my overriding points here...i think no one has the right to complain about anything unless they've been intimately acquainted with it. so i guess in some ways i feel like i've earned the right to makes these critiques.
perhaps it's hypocritical of me to talk about xenophobic little kids in the context of my own arguably stereotypical diatribe and whatnot. but i don't think so. i came here with the best of intentions, with the same genuine starry-eyed wanderlust that i can only hope beautifully "afflicts" everyone on the planet at some point. and yes, there have been some amazing experiences in korea, but the frequency with which they happen has been in decline from the onset. the wanderlust was instead replaced by this feeling that my own life in korea was something i had to "endure" to become a better, stronger, more charismatic person. i'm done giving this country the benefit of the doubt and feeling guilty about the less than stellar review i've given it.
i'm excited about vietnam. i'm excited about china. i'm excited about the opportunity to live elsewhere and about the chance to do so in a simpler way. i've made a lot of money in korea (or at least more than i could have made stateside). but instead of any sort of relief i assumed this would give me, i've become consumed by finances and materialism. i hate that part of me. there are days when the idea of what is considered physically beautiful repulses me, when the idea of wealth repulses me, so much so that i want nothing more than to look disgusting or to burn a large wad (there's that word again!) of money, simply because it would be something different.
i'm ready to be done with very obvious manifestations of wealth. always been a bigger fan of subtlety (in pretty much all aspects of life). and poverty. i mean, if you want to talk about building character, i'm sure there's nothing better than being dirt poor...just ask someone who's dirt poor.
i guess it's my blog. i don't need to attempt to further justify my own opinions. let's just say it's been a rough year. and the goal when i came here was not to be more bitter. i am stronger (that's a nice, vague word when you think about it), but not without a cost. i guess it will take time to figure out whether it was worth it.
oh yeah! i was in a car accident on saturday night with my co-teacher. her car is slightly fucked, but no one was hurt.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
teachers' day and some angst thrown in for good measure
here's a fact. i probably need to stop hitting the sauce. and yet, as i type that, all i can think about is how i really really would like to be drinking a shitty beer at precisely this moment, because that would have to mean that i wasn't at work, which is all my life's been reduced to lately. not that it's a bad thing to be "reduced" to the position of english teacher. that's no huge failure. unless of course, you're not a fan of the organization for which you work. been wavering back and forth lately between loving and loathing this place. guess i should restate that "lately" part, as i know that my bloggage for the past year would reflect a pretty consistent "wavering." however, as this precise writing will reflect, i'm of course unhappy with it right now. things are pretty quiet on my end when i'm satisfied and/or content (2 words i hate) with things in my life or when i'm insanely busy. but seriously, folks, what good is writing about things that make me happy? booorrring...
anyhoo, those were yesterday's musings. and yes, i did ultimately end up drinking. combining all the drinking for the week into one weekend evening seems like a pretty smart plan to me. it was a busy night of barfing (not on my part), as the bathroom at one local drinkery was a veritable "who's who" of passed out korean girls and their friends. on two separate ocassions i went into the bathroom and saw crowds of girls and boys huddling in stalls, literally dragging passed out girls out of them by their hands. not to mention the vomit in the sink and clogging up at least 3 of the toilets. silly me, i always find something comforting in all that havoc, because i know that i've never been and will never be that fucking drunk. any women's bathroom in korea is also a nice reminder that it doesn't matter how cute a korean girl's shoes are or how small her waist is, she's not quite as pretty in the context of her piss, shit and blood-smeared toilet paper on display in the trash cans next to all the toilets. i'm not implying that "my shit don't stink," as that most eloquent of sayings suggests, but i think i'm a little better at not dripping menstrual blood all over the seat and/or stall of a public restroom. i guess we've all got our own talents.
moving away from period blood, but staying with the drinking theme...
the other night i saw a man in a snappy business suit weaving down the street. he paused for a few seconds, just long enough to projectile vomit through his sprawled fingers. then he continued his walk, shaking the vomit off his hand. covering your mouth when you barf has always seemed to me the most futile of gestures. if you're in the privacy of a bathroom, there's no need for coverage, so that means the gesture is invariably executed in a public location, in an attempt to hide the inevitable. but you can't really hide barfing, especially not barfing into your own cupped hand. so instead of having the 2-pronged embarassment of "hey, yeah, sorry i just barfed in front of you" coupled with the "hey, yeah, i've now got barf all over at least one of my hands," why not just omit that last part by letting it fly? shreds of dignity are still dignity, and those shreds are precisely what not barfing into your hand earns you.
moving on, teacher's day was on thursday; thus, thursday was a terrible day. i had been "invited" to what had been classified as a "secret" work meeting near the main branch on thursday. apparently it was an honor or some shit to be asked to go--a hand-picked bunch of we foreign teachers, how exciting! but no one ever told me exactly what this event that i would be attending entailed. they did inform me at the last minute on wednesday night that i had to wear black or white formal clothing. uh, define formal. me in jeans that are actually clean is pretty fucking formal in my book.
so after finishing work that night, i headed over to the lotte mart to try to find some korean-sized clothes to fit american-sized me. ended up buying two dresses that were ultimately too sexy to wear while representing my school. i suppose "too sexy" is a phrase that also begs definition, as i'm in the land of teachers who wear midriff-exposing shirts that attract many the guffaw from cleaning ladies on the elevator....if you've got it, flaunt it. particularly in the domain of elementary school children.
needless to say, i was the only chick at the photo shoot wearing a blue dress. i was also a giant as i opted for heels to make myself more presentable. so this was the first annoying part of the day (wait, there was already a 1st annoying part--getting up at 6 was pretty fucking annoying, and damn near painful). i'm sort of morally opposed to looking nice, specially round these parts. perhaps i should rephrase...i'm opposed to adhering to the korean ideal of beauty, which is a very homogenous, stale commodity. and on this day, i looked like a korean girl with my dark hair, my heels and my oversized sack dress, and i felt totally uncomfortable. i heard a lot of "you should dress like this everyday." barf. random interjection: i hate the word "should." anyhoo, the whole day i carried around my version of a security blanket, which was a grocery bag with my "real" clothes in it--jeans, cowboy boots, crappy button down shirt. after all, being a teacher isn't a fashion show. or is it?
when i first got to the coex mall we had a photo shoot for about an hour. a sea of teachers in black and white (and one in blue!) being herded around like cattle (but not american cattle, mind you, because it's all teeming with "crazy beef"--the why-we-hate-lee-myung-bak flavor of the month) by a man who was very cavalier with his uber-expensive camera.
after the photo shoot we all headed to some little convention room where an old korean lady with green hair gesticulated wildly and had the crowd in stitches, i tell you, stitches. we foreigners were forced to sit in the very front row, so there was no opportunity for doodling, snoozing or commiserating. so yeah, 2 hours of her talking about i don't know what, peppered with uproarious laughter in response to jokes that i'm quite certain couldn't be as funny as my dad's. then there was some terrible singing (think of a really bad quartet at state music contest. okay, now throw in a guitar and you've got the talent for that day) and more speeches. ate some grub, then had to immediately head back to ilsan to start teaching at 4:30. it was teachers' day, and i watched my two korean co-teachers get more cookies and flowers and general adulation than i did. had i not been so tired, i wouldn't have minded as much, but it just hurt my feelings. i teach as much as they do (sometimes more) but sometimes it feels as though the foreign teachers at the school are still not viewed with the same respect as the korean teachers. and since i'm never in a bad mood while i'm at work, people don't really know how to act around me when i am upset. which is just annoying. i've worked 6 days a week for the past fucking year. and i'm not a chipper person. also, none of the korean teachers could understand how i could be more tired than they were--after all, we were all at the same meeting--completely oblivious to the fact that sitting and listening to peple talk for at least 2 hours and not understanding a fucking word they say is, actually, quite exhausting. allow me the freedom, just once, to be in a bad mood.
oh yeah, i was also sposed to meet with my school's head honcho sometime on thursday to talk about my salary, should i choose to resign with my school (i know, i know. why the fuck would i do that? obviously, the money is too good to pass up). but that didn't happen, which made me really really fucking pissy, as my current contract is finished in one month, and i still have no idea what the fuck i'm doing after vietnam in august. so fuck yeah, i'm more than a little stressed (note all the "fuck"s). after no meeting on thursday combined with several unanswered text messages, phone calls and emails requesting a meeting with said head honcho, i was on the verge of tears friday night. and honestly, it's been awhile since i felt like i was going to lose my mind at work. probably a good thing, i realize, but also quite interesting considering my history of fragile emotional states. it's just such a sinking feeling when something that's a top priority to you is so utterly insignificant to someone else. completely helpless is how i've felt for the past week. but hey, my meeting's tomorrow, it only took some mild harassment. so i should, in theory, have some clue as to what i'm doing with myself at the end of this summer after 1:30 tomorrow. yikes.
i suppose this is all. i just hate this indecision. it's been very hard to sit still lately, or to focus on anything. i've felt incredibly busy, with nothing tangible, only my own worries, to show for it.
anyhoo, those were yesterday's musings. and yes, i did ultimately end up drinking. combining all the drinking for the week into one weekend evening seems like a pretty smart plan to me. it was a busy night of barfing (not on my part), as the bathroom at one local drinkery was a veritable "who's who" of passed out korean girls and their friends. on two separate ocassions i went into the bathroom and saw crowds of girls and boys huddling in stalls, literally dragging passed out girls out of them by their hands. not to mention the vomit in the sink and clogging up at least 3 of the toilets. silly me, i always find something comforting in all that havoc, because i know that i've never been and will never be that fucking drunk. any women's bathroom in korea is also a nice reminder that it doesn't matter how cute a korean girl's shoes are or how small her waist is, she's not quite as pretty in the context of her piss, shit and blood-smeared toilet paper on display in the trash cans next to all the toilets. i'm not implying that "my shit don't stink," as that most eloquent of sayings suggests, but i think i'm a little better at not dripping menstrual blood all over the seat and/or stall of a public restroom. i guess we've all got our own talents.
moving away from period blood, but staying with the drinking theme...
the other night i saw a man in a snappy business suit weaving down the street. he paused for a few seconds, just long enough to projectile vomit through his sprawled fingers. then he continued his walk, shaking the vomit off his hand. covering your mouth when you barf has always seemed to me the most futile of gestures. if you're in the privacy of a bathroom, there's no need for coverage, so that means the gesture is invariably executed in a public location, in an attempt to hide the inevitable. but you can't really hide barfing, especially not barfing into your own cupped hand. so instead of having the 2-pronged embarassment of "hey, yeah, sorry i just barfed in front of you" coupled with the "hey, yeah, i've now got barf all over at least one of my hands," why not just omit that last part by letting it fly? shreds of dignity are still dignity, and those shreds are precisely what not barfing into your hand earns you.
moving on, teacher's day was on thursday; thus, thursday was a terrible day. i had been "invited" to what had been classified as a "secret" work meeting near the main branch on thursday. apparently it was an honor or some shit to be asked to go--a hand-picked bunch of we foreign teachers, how exciting! but no one ever told me exactly what this event that i would be attending entailed. they did inform me at the last minute on wednesday night that i had to wear black or white formal clothing. uh, define formal. me in jeans that are actually clean is pretty fucking formal in my book.
so after finishing work that night, i headed over to the lotte mart to try to find some korean-sized clothes to fit american-sized me. ended up buying two dresses that were ultimately too sexy to wear while representing my school. i suppose "too sexy" is a phrase that also begs definition, as i'm in the land of teachers who wear midriff-exposing shirts that attract many the guffaw from cleaning ladies on the elevator....if you've got it, flaunt it. particularly in the domain of elementary school children.
needless to say, i was the only chick at the photo shoot wearing a blue dress. i was also a giant as i opted for heels to make myself more presentable. so this was the first annoying part of the day (wait, there was already a 1st annoying part--getting up at 6 was pretty fucking annoying, and damn near painful). i'm sort of morally opposed to looking nice, specially round these parts. perhaps i should rephrase...i'm opposed to adhering to the korean ideal of beauty, which is a very homogenous, stale commodity. and on this day, i looked like a korean girl with my dark hair, my heels and my oversized sack dress, and i felt totally uncomfortable. i heard a lot of "you should dress like this everyday." barf. random interjection: i hate the word "should." anyhoo, the whole day i carried around my version of a security blanket, which was a grocery bag with my "real" clothes in it--jeans, cowboy boots, crappy button down shirt. after all, being a teacher isn't a fashion show. or is it?
when i first got to the coex mall we had a photo shoot for about an hour. a sea of teachers in black and white (and one in blue!) being herded around like cattle (but not american cattle, mind you, because it's all teeming with "crazy beef"--the why-we-hate-lee-myung-bak flavor of the month) by a man who was very cavalier with his uber-expensive camera.
after the photo shoot we all headed to some little convention room where an old korean lady with green hair gesticulated wildly and had the crowd in stitches, i tell you, stitches. we foreigners were forced to sit in the very front row, so there was no opportunity for doodling, snoozing or commiserating. so yeah, 2 hours of her talking about i don't know what, peppered with uproarious laughter in response to jokes that i'm quite certain couldn't be as funny as my dad's. then there was some terrible singing (think of a really bad quartet at state music contest. okay, now throw in a guitar and you've got the talent for that day) and more speeches. ate some grub, then had to immediately head back to ilsan to start teaching at 4:30. it was teachers' day, and i watched my two korean co-teachers get more cookies and flowers and general adulation than i did. had i not been so tired, i wouldn't have minded as much, but it just hurt my feelings. i teach as much as they do (sometimes more) but sometimes it feels as though the foreign teachers at the school are still not viewed with the same respect as the korean teachers. and since i'm never in a bad mood while i'm at work, people don't really know how to act around me when i am upset. which is just annoying. i've worked 6 days a week for the past fucking year. and i'm not a chipper person. also, none of the korean teachers could understand how i could be more tired than they were--after all, we were all at the same meeting--completely oblivious to the fact that sitting and listening to peple talk for at least 2 hours and not understanding a fucking word they say is, actually, quite exhausting. allow me the freedom, just once, to be in a bad mood.
oh yeah, i was also sposed to meet with my school's head honcho sometime on thursday to talk about my salary, should i choose to resign with my school (i know, i know. why the fuck would i do that? obviously, the money is too good to pass up). but that didn't happen, which made me really really fucking pissy, as my current contract is finished in one month, and i still have no idea what the fuck i'm doing after vietnam in august. so fuck yeah, i'm more than a little stressed (note all the "fuck"s). after no meeting on thursday combined with several unanswered text messages, phone calls and emails requesting a meeting with said head honcho, i was on the verge of tears friday night. and honestly, it's been awhile since i felt like i was going to lose my mind at work. probably a good thing, i realize, but also quite interesting considering my history of fragile emotional states. it's just such a sinking feeling when something that's a top priority to you is so utterly insignificant to someone else. completely helpless is how i've felt for the past week. but hey, my meeting's tomorrow, it only took some mild harassment. so i should, in theory, have some clue as to what i'm doing with myself at the end of this summer after 1:30 tomorrow. yikes.
i suppose this is all. i just hate this indecision. it's been very hard to sit still lately, or to focus on anything. i've felt incredibly busy, with nothing tangible, only my own worries, to show for it.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
weekends and stuff
it's been a while, so i feel obligated to post something. as the weekend just ended, i should probably talk about that very subject. i'll start with last weekend.
last weekend was more interesting in retrospect than it was whilst in the thick of it.
friday night:
finished work at 10:30, then headed to the only bar i've gone to with any sort of frequency in ilsan, torro's. met up with a korean dude that i'd met there before. the last time i saw him, he was talking about studying for the gre and going to america. told him i didn't really have any drinking buddies, so we should get a drink sometime. anyhoo, as soon as i show up to this bar, i can tell that he thinks this is more than just two peeps getting liquored up. rut ro. awkward from the very beginning. highlights of said awkwardness:
-he complimented me ad nauseum. yes, of course i like compliments, but when you say them just to fill the silence and look at the floor while you speak, it makes it a little uncomfortable.
-when i went to the bathroom, he offered to escort me.
-when he went to the bathroom, he said "i'm just going number one. not number two. i think it's cute to tell people which one you're doing." is it cute? maybe i'm just old-fashioned...
-when we decided to quit drinking, he said "do you see any cops around? if there aren't any cops around then i can drive you home. " uh, no thanks.
-i got in the taxi and he just stood there looking like a sad dog.
i have a real problem when i find myself in these all-too-familiar situations. people might think, "why don't you just leave?" and i ask myself the exact same question, but when i'm there, i think it's my duty to uphold whatever the obligation is. i guess i'm sort of a pushover in many aspects of my life. this was a very clear reminder of that.
saturday i worked until 8 pm, then i headed into seoul to meet my friend lesley, from the asian affairs center in como. we went to itaewon and started off the night with a pitcher of margaritas at poncho's. headed to gecko's after that where my toe was nearly impaled by a wayward stiletto heel. interesting to me that that's my only real observation from that bar. after that we followed some other peeps to a bar on hooker hill, the name of which i don't recall. danced for a while, drank for a while, then needed a change of venue. this is where it got slightly more interesting, as some mischief which has been grossly lacking from my life ensued. we headed down a side street and stumbled upon a bar at the table. lesley became engaged in what appeared to be an engrossing, or at least mildly entertaining conversation. the next thing i know, the dude next to me has his arm around me and is trying to kiss my neck. eww. at this point i tried to send some distress signals to lesley, but it took a while for her to receive my transmissions. in the meantime, this dude says he wants to marry me and that he doesn't want another man to ever touch me. yikes. we eventually made it into the street, with my new husband's arm on me. he sure didn't want to let me go. nervous laughter. so i finally removed his arm from me, and we went on our merry way. then we noticed one of the other dudes from this bar was following us. it was fun to hide behind street signs and tents in order to evade him. but we did. ended up at bar nana, where the guys with tattoos who have consistently ignored me in the past decided that i was finally cool enough to acknowledge. headed to mcdonald's at about 6 am to round out the evening. post-mcdonald's headed back to lesley's hotel so i could gather my things. then i had to go to seoul station to catch the ktx train to busan for a friend's wedding. so yeah, a whirlwind of a night, which explains why i was awake for 40 straight hours over the course of the weekend.
moving on to my first korean wedding experience, also known as the least romantic event i've ever been privvy to. i guess a pap smear is pretty unromantic too, but let's not split hairs.
i got to busan where my friend gun (yes, his chosen english name) picked me up from the terminal. then we headed to jack's wedding. let me first note that i'm a tall girl. and on this day i was a tall girl wearing heels, so i got many a stare. so yeah, we walk into the monstrosity that is a korean wedding hall, the fast food restaurant of nuptials. people book these big banquet type rooms by the hour, so it's just a big building that's constantly full, shuffling wedding parties in and out of the rooms. so for every wedding that's going on, all the guests of all the weddings are sort of bottlenecking at the elevators. it was strange and crowded and i didn't know anyone. but i did get to see jack for all of 2 minutes. then he had to go get married.
the service itself was interesting. there's not really a lot of pressure on the bride and groom, as they didn't even have to speak during the whole ceremony. the parents were all wearing hanbok (traditional korean clothes), while the bride and groom were wearing bastardized, arguably gaudy versions of western wedding clothes. i seem to recall a lot of sequins. like the deb or rue 21 version of a dream wedding dress. the bride did look very pretty though. or at least i think she did, as she never looked up from the floor the whole time i was there. she did cry a lot, and there was a woman who worked for the wedding hall whose job it was to dab away her tears. very strange to have this woman in plain clothes shadowing the decked out bride. there was nothing inconspicuous about it at all. but back to the service. there was some cctv screen that all us peeps in the back could watch. the bride and groom just stood at this alter while a man talked a lot. there was no exchanging of vows, no exchanging of rings, no sentimentality in general. but there were some prerecorded commands that were played, announcing things like "this is the part where the groom bows before his new in-laws!" then there was a disco ball light that was turned on while the cake came out. i also recall a projection on the screen behind them of some little anime-type bride and groom characters. some chick sang a song about jesus, then some dudes sang a song about something else. and that was it. then we all shuffled upstairs for the free buffet. the buffet was also for all the other peeps attending all the other weddings in the building, so there was no sense of community, or of the worlds of the bride and groom nervously(beautifully?) colliding. it was just "hey, food's ready." i didn't even see jack and his wife in the buffet room. but, there was beer on the table, so that was cool. efficient is an adjective i would not usually associate with anything korean (same for romantic, and that holds true...), and yet, this wedding was the epitome of efficiency.
after the wedding, i was really planning on just hopping back on the ktx and heading home. i was exhausted, hadn't slept, smelled sort of funky, and had no motivation whatsoever. but gun had decided to be my tour guide for the day, so i wasn't let off the hook that easy. i felt bad for him, as i was basically this comotose zombie he dragged around the whole day, but we managed to do a lot, consuming lots o' coffee along the way. my tired, limited hours in busan made me rethink my whole negative attitude about korea. seems like that happens every time i go there. the air is different, the people are different. and i found myself wondering, "why the fuck am i in ilsan? i should be in busan." but, only two more months here, so i think i can hang in there.
anyhoo. we went to a beach first. not hongdae, but close to it. at this beach, there were people actually surfing. granted, the waves were too small to yield much success, but it was still cool. always wanted to try that, but i didn't even realize you could go surfing at beaches in korea. so we sat and watched the surfers and the kite fliers and the families engaging in general beach merriment. quite nice.
after that we headed towards hongdae, which actually took a long time. on the way, there's a scenic point where you can look out from a cliff onto the water. there were lots of vendors out and about selling food, used clothes, random toys and drinks. you can definitely tell when the weather changes in these parts, as the homeless people, beggars and vendors come out of the woodwork.
made it to hongdae and went on a quest for some keychains. these aren't regular keychains, they're keychains with dead fish in them, and i just think they're cool. or at least the last one i had was cool until it broke and oozed dead fish oil everywhere. eventually found the keychains, then bummed around the beach, drinking more coffee. gun wanted to try his hand at frisbee, so we hung around some foreigners, waiting for the wayward disc. he wasn't pleased with his frisbee prowess.
left hongdae, ate some samgyupsal, drank beer, then i headed back to the train station. i had some time to kill, so i fell asleep briefly at the coffee shop adjacent to the terminal. a very kind older woman came and woke me up and checked my ticket to make sure i wasn't going to miss my train. finally got to seoul, then had to get to ilsan. there were no buses convenient enough for me, so i said fuck it and took at taxi. taxi drivers in korea sure are chatty. i have the phone numbers of so many of them, too. in korea, it's hard not to get someone's number, because as soon as they see that you have a phone, they think you're going to be best friends. nevermind the fact that i live an hour and a half away from you, you speak no english, and you're 60 years old. yeah, sure, i'll call you next time i'm out drinking! rolled in at a cool 1 am in the morning. thus ending my 40 hours of being awake. you know, it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. and i didn't even sleep well when i got home.
so that was last weekend.
on tuesday night i hung out with lesley in myeongdong. we tried to take a taxi elsewhere, but apparently that's impossible when it's raining. so we went to some random, generic bar. then we ended up in a street tent in the rain, drinking beer out of dirty bottles and eating clam soup. rather, i ate all of the clam soup. i'll eat whatever you put in front of me.
this weekend was a little less exciting, but still good. pretty much ruled out any sort of friday night, as i had to work at 8 on saturday morning. gross. my friend is in amsterdam now, but he wanted to get drunk on saturday before he left on sunday. so of course i agreed. headed to seoul after work, started drinking. we ended up in gangnam, which is losing whatever lustre i had previously afforded it. one drinking 'hood in korea is the same as any other. drank in a pseudo-tent, then went to the czech bar with meters of beer, met up with some dyb peeps at another bar. it's been awhile since i've been around that many foreigners who i sort of know. but it was good. i've given up on making friends 'round these parts, and i'm quite comfortable with that decision. ended up drinking until about 4 in the morning. felt bad for my friend, who was looking a little rough around the edges. but hey, he made it to amsterdam (i think), so no harm done. i, however, felt like shit all of yesterday. way too hungover, considering i just drank a shitload of beer. hmmm.
in other news, i got a new class at work. it's full of the lowest level 5th and 6th graders combined. they're beginning readers, so they don't really understand what they're reading yet. at any rate, the class certainly requires a lot of pantomime on my part. roles acted out so far: a stork, some frogs, and the god jupiter. but hey, they seemed to understand the story, so i can't be too bad.
last weekend was more interesting in retrospect than it was whilst in the thick of it.
friday night:
finished work at 10:30, then headed to the only bar i've gone to with any sort of frequency in ilsan, torro's. met up with a korean dude that i'd met there before. the last time i saw him, he was talking about studying for the gre and going to america. told him i didn't really have any drinking buddies, so we should get a drink sometime. anyhoo, as soon as i show up to this bar, i can tell that he thinks this is more than just two peeps getting liquored up. rut ro. awkward from the very beginning. highlights of said awkwardness:
-he complimented me ad nauseum. yes, of course i like compliments, but when you say them just to fill the silence and look at the floor while you speak, it makes it a little uncomfortable.
-when i went to the bathroom, he offered to escort me.
-when he went to the bathroom, he said "i'm just going number one. not number two. i think it's cute to tell people which one you're doing." is it cute? maybe i'm just old-fashioned...
-when we decided to quit drinking, he said "do you see any cops around? if there aren't any cops around then i can drive you home. " uh, no thanks.
-i got in the taxi and he just stood there looking like a sad dog.
i have a real problem when i find myself in these all-too-familiar situations. people might think, "why don't you just leave?" and i ask myself the exact same question, but when i'm there, i think it's my duty to uphold whatever the obligation is. i guess i'm sort of a pushover in many aspects of my life. this was a very clear reminder of that.
saturday i worked until 8 pm, then i headed into seoul to meet my friend lesley, from the asian affairs center in como. we went to itaewon and started off the night with a pitcher of margaritas at poncho's. headed to gecko's after that where my toe was nearly impaled by a wayward stiletto heel. interesting to me that that's my only real observation from that bar. after that we followed some other peeps to a bar on hooker hill, the name of which i don't recall. danced for a while, drank for a while, then needed a change of venue. this is where it got slightly more interesting, as some mischief which has been grossly lacking from my life ensued. we headed down a side street and stumbled upon a bar at the table. lesley became engaged in what appeared to be an engrossing, or at least mildly entertaining conversation. the next thing i know, the dude next to me has his arm around me and is trying to kiss my neck. eww. at this point i tried to send some distress signals to lesley, but it took a while for her to receive my transmissions. in the meantime, this dude says he wants to marry me and that he doesn't want another man to ever touch me. yikes. we eventually made it into the street, with my new husband's arm on me. he sure didn't want to let me go. nervous laughter. so i finally removed his arm from me, and we went on our merry way. then we noticed one of the other dudes from this bar was following us. it was fun to hide behind street signs and tents in order to evade him. but we did. ended up at bar nana, where the guys with tattoos who have consistently ignored me in the past decided that i was finally cool enough to acknowledge. headed to mcdonald's at about 6 am to round out the evening. post-mcdonald's headed back to lesley's hotel so i could gather my things. then i had to go to seoul station to catch the ktx train to busan for a friend's wedding. so yeah, a whirlwind of a night, which explains why i was awake for 40 straight hours over the course of the weekend.
moving on to my first korean wedding experience, also known as the least romantic event i've ever been privvy to. i guess a pap smear is pretty unromantic too, but let's not split hairs.
i got to busan where my friend gun (yes, his chosen english name) picked me up from the terminal. then we headed to jack's wedding. let me first note that i'm a tall girl. and on this day i was a tall girl wearing heels, so i got many a stare. so yeah, we walk into the monstrosity that is a korean wedding hall, the fast food restaurant of nuptials. people book these big banquet type rooms by the hour, so it's just a big building that's constantly full, shuffling wedding parties in and out of the rooms. so for every wedding that's going on, all the guests of all the weddings are sort of bottlenecking at the elevators. it was strange and crowded and i didn't know anyone. but i did get to see jack for all of 2 minutes. then he had to go get married.
the service itself was interesting. there's not really a lot of pressure on the bride and groom, as they didn't even have to speak during the whole ceremony. the parents were all wearing hanbok (traditional korean clothes), while the bride and groom were wearing bastardized, arguably gaudy versions of western wedding clothes. i seem to recall a lot of sequins. like the deb or rue 21 version of a dream wedding dress. the bride did look very pretty though. or at least i think she did, as she never looked up from the floor the whole time i was there. she did cry a lot, and there was a woman who worked for the wedding hall whose job it was to dab away her tears. very strange to have this woman in plain clothes shadowing the decked out bride. there was nothing inconspicuous about it at all. but back to the service. there was some cctv screen that all us peeps in the back could watch. the bride and groom just stood at this alter while a man talked a lot. there was no exchanging of vows, no exchanging of rings, no sentimentality in general. but there were some prerecorded commands that were played, announcing things like "this is the part where the groom bows before his new in-laws!" then there was a disco ball light that was turned on while the cake came out. i also recall a projection on the screen behind them of some little anime-type bride and groom characters. some chick sang a song about jesus, then some dudes sang a song about something else. and that was it. then we all shuffled upstairs for the free buffet. the buffet was also for all the other peeps attending all the other weddings in the building, so there was no sense of community, or of the worlds of the bride and groom nervously(beautifully?) colliding. it was just "hey, food's ready." i didn't even see jack and his wife in the buffet room. but, there was beer on the table, so that was cool. efficient is an adjective i would not usually associate with anything korean (same for romantic, and that holds true...), and yet, this wedding was the epitome of efficiency.
after the wedding, i was really planning on just hopping back on the ktx and heading home. i was exhausted, hadn't slept, smelled sort of funky, and had no motivation whatsoever. but gun had decided to be my tour guide for the day, so i wasn't let off the hook that easy. i felt bad for him, as i was basically this comotose zombie he dragged around the whole day, but we managed to do a lot, consuming lots o' coffee along the way. my tired, limited hours in busan made me rethink my whole negative attitude about korea. seems like that happens every time i go there. the air is different, the people are different. and i found myself wondering, "why the fuck am i in ilsan? i should be in busan." but, only two more months here, so i think i can hang in there.
anyhoo. we went to a beach first. not hongdae, but close to it. at this beach, there were people actually surfing. granted, the waves were too small to yield much success, but it was still cool. always wanted to try that, but i didn't even realize you could go surfing at beaches in korea. so we sat and watched the surfers and the kite fliers and the families engaging in general beach merriment. quite nice.
after that we headed towards hongdae, which actually took a long time. on the way, there's a scenic point where you can look out from a cliff onto the water. there were lots of vendors out and about selling food, used clothes, random toys and drinks. you can definitely tell when the weather changes in these parts, as the homeless people, beggars and vendors come out of the woodwork.
made it to hongdae and went on a quest for some keychains. these aren't regular keychains, they're keychains with dead fish in them, and i just think they're cool. or at least the last one i had was cool until it broke and oozed dead fish oil everywhere. eventually found the keychains, then bummed around the beach, drinking more coffee. gun wanted to try his hand at frisbee, so we hung around some foreigners, waiting for the wayward disc. he wasn't pleased with his frisbee prowess.
left hongdae, ate some samgyupsal, drank beer, then i headed back to the train station. i had some time to kill, so i fell asleep briefly at the coffee shop adjacent to the terminal. a very kind older woman came and woke me up and checked my ticket to make sure i wasn't going to miss my train. finally got to seoul, then had to get to ilsan. there were no buses convenient enough for me, so i said fuck it and took at taxi. taxi drivers in korea sure are chatty. i have the phone numbers of so many of them, too. in korea, it's hard not to get someone's number, because as soon as they see that you have a phone, they think you're going to be best friends. nevermind the fact that i live an hour and a half away from you, you speak no english, and you're 60 years old. yeah, sure, i'll call you next time i'm out drinking! rolled in at a cool 1 am in the morning. thus ending my 40 hours of being awake. you know, it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. and i didn't even sleep well when i got home.
so that was last weekend.
on tuesday night i hung out with lesley in myeongdong. we tried to take a taxi elsewhere, but apparently that's impossible when it's raining. so we went to some random, generic bar. then we ended up in a street tent in the rain, drinking beer out of dirty bottles and eating clam soup. rather, i ate all of the clam soup. i'll eat whatever you put in front of me.
this weekend was a little less exciting, but still good. pretty much ruled out any sort of friday night, as i had to work at 8 on saturday morning. gross. my friend is in amsterdam now, but he wanted to get drunk on saturday before he left on sunday. so of course i agreed. headed to seoul after work, started drinking. we ended up in gangnam, which is losing whatever lustre i had previously afforded it. one drinking 'hood in korea is the same as any other. drank in a pseudo-tent, then went to the czech bar with meters of beer, met up with some dyb peeps at another bar. it's been awhile since i've been around that many foreigners who i sort of know. but it was good. i've given up on making friends 'round these parts, and i'm quite comfortable with that decision. ended up drinking until about 4 in the morning. felt bad for my friend, who was looking a little rough around the edges. but hey, he made it to amsterdam (i think), so no harm done. i, however, felt like shit all of yesterday. way too hungover, considering i just drank a shitload of beer. hmmm.
in other news, i got a new class at work. it's full of the lowest level 5th and 6th graders combined. they're beginning readers, so they don't really understand what they're reading yet. at any rate, the class certainly requires a lot of pantomime on my part. roles acted out so far: a stork, some frogs, and the god jupiter. but hey, they seemed to understand the story, so i can't be too bad.
Friday, April 25, 2008
good news, bears
i was accepted into the vietnam program. so at the end of july, i'll be spending a month in ho chi minh city [hopefully] getting my CELTA certificate. cool beans.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
i have funny students.
today in one of my classes, we were talking about the story "the king's new clothes." i was explaining to these fourth graders that the term "birthday suit" meant naked, like when you're born. and james, a pudgy kid who is perpetually sweating and flustered, says to the korean teacher "maybe if the mother eats clothes then the baby will be born with clothes." i thought that was pretty funny.
in another class full of my mega-smart kids, we were talking about college and jobs, so i asked "what do you call a person who studies insects? and a kid says, "an insector." ha ha.
in another class full of my mega-smart kids, we were talking about college and jobs, so i asked "what do you call a person who studies insects? and a kid says, "an insector." ha ha.
Monday, April 07, 2008
sickness and sadness
today is my first sick day since i started this job last june. i am very sweaty. there is snot-crusted toilet paper strewn all over my apartment. when i replace the tissues in my nose, a thin stream of goo pours out. also, the korean medicine i was given makes me more than slightly loopy. and i've drank a lot of nyquil in the past couple days. so that covers the sickness part....
now for the sadness. a few days ago i went to my favorite drinking establishment here in ilsan, the rosenbrau brewhaus. said brewhaus is known for it's meter high beers and for my favorite filipino band, featuring the vocal stylings of lloyd. lloyd needs no last name. usually, i go and get hammered drunk and embarass myself in any number of ways: 1) screaming "LLOYD" at the top of my lungs the whole time while the rest of the restaurant glares at me; 2) having lloyd sit on my lap for photos; or 3) going onstage to dance with the band and being forcibly removed by korean security. anyhoo, i show up the other night, ready to get my lloyd on, and his band's fucking gone. no more. replaced instead by a marc anthony wannabe and his jiggly, whorish side kicks. i don't want to hear shakira, folks, i want to hear journey. so my point is: fuck the brewhaus, i'm never going back.
now for the sadness. a few days ago i went to my favorite drinking establishment here in ilsan, the rosenbrau brewhaus. said brewhaus is known for it's meter high beers and for my favorite filipino band, featuring the vocal stylings of lloyd. lloyd needs no last name. usually, i go and get hammered drunk and embarass myself in any number of ways: 1) screaming "LLOYD" at the top of my lungs the whole time while the rest of the restaurant glares at me; 2) having lloyd sit on my lap for photos; or 3) going onstage to dance with the band and being forcibly removed by korean security. anyhoo, i show up the other night, ready to get my lloyd on, and his band's fucking gone. no more. replaced instead by a marc anthony wannabe and his jiggly, whorish side kicks. i don't want to hear shakira, folks, i want to hear journey. so my point is: fuck the brewhaus, i'm never going back.
seriously, i was really pissed. so yes, i had a crush on the lead singer of a filipino cover band in ilsan, south korea. and now my world is shattered.
here's a picture from the ol' good days:
Monday, March 31, 2008
more vacation bloggage. super exciting!
some notes from while i was home, with sprinklings of the present day thrown in for even more self-examining happy fun time!
v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n, we're gonna have a ball! if any place can be simultaneously depressing and uber-mega-clarifying, it would be missouri. i think i'll always have this sense of nostalgia for this place (see the sentimental end of this blog), but vacation was really great in that it sort of helped to quell this lingering and arguably misguided mystique i've let hover over the columbia, mo of my mind (only sort of. while i was home it seemed definitive, but now i'm reviewing these words from my korean perspective. one week back and i've already hit a wall. i'm nothing if not predictable.). there is/was something sterile and depressing about this oft revered/reviled pseudo-utopia that i had built up in my mind. nothing changes. sure, building facades, college students and hipster fashions change, but there was also this familiar feeling of stasis. it was honestly as comforting as it was tragic. but a lot of the same people leading their same lives and existing far below their potential. reminds me again of a hesse quote:
"a newly formulated, but strong resolve to place his actions and his life under the aegis of transcedence, to make of it a serenely resolute moving on, filling and then leaving behind him every stage along the way....let no sentiments of home detain us."
i really like that idea. life as a progression. i'd like to think i view my own life this way, despite how slow-going the progress tends to feel sometimes. i sort of interpret this "resolute moving on" as a fear of settling. which i don't think is exactly what hesse meant. he certainly wasn't suggesting "fear" as motivation, but rather the pursuit of "empowerment/enlightenment." i guess that could be a contrition vs. attrition argument. the end result could be the same, but how honest is the motivation. anyhoo, i feel shitty being so judgemental of others (or at least i'm willing to recognize that i SHOULD feel guilty), but i should emphasize that this judgement isn't unique to my korean/abroad perspective. i was one of those peeps who felt trapped in my own life (still do, funny how that sort of looming issue follows you around the globe). this is also not to imply that i see all people who live in missouri as pathetic or without overriding desires and motivations that color their lives however vibrantly or dull-ly. in fact, there's nothing i would like more than to be in columbia, mo and to be HAPPY to be there, like so many others genuinely are. isn't that what everyone wants (substitute your own city)? a good friend told me a long time ago that "happiness isn't a place." true dat. unless it's the name of a restaurant or bar or something. i guess it's just fascinating to me when people AREN'T torn up inside over a palpable lack (yes, i've argued this in my brain--"nothing" can actually be felt) of any life pursuits, any "transcendence." i was listening to some sort of horrible half-formed semantic argument (in english!) in a coffee shop in my home state. and it was nice to be annoyed by this supposed comfort. so if i must come to a point, both related and unrelated to all this other bullshit i'm spewing, i guess it's this: so many people seek validation from outside sources (hey, i'm guilty too!) instead of taking it upon themselves to enact positive changes in their lives. and yeah, this is a microcosm of my life in missouri in general. the familiarity of even the most dismal of prospects is still comforting.
moving from that rambling to other rambling...let's do a recap of vacation events, shall we?
day one: mikey picked me up from the airport, and i was convinced at this point that sitting in a car with him for 2 hours made my entire trip home worth it. he listens to me but doesn't judge, like so many other people close to me do. sounds like a simple enough idea, but it's rarer than most would expect. so he delivered me to columbia, mo and shakespeare's and my parents. my vacation was a big surprise for my mom. tried to keep it quiet, as i've never been big on undue (or due, for that matter) fanfare. dad had concocted some huge lie 2 months in the making just to get mom to come out to shakespeare's for the surprise "reveal." it was pretty great to be able to give her that gift. when i first told dad i was coming home, i thought it would be cool to surprise mom. so dad ultimately told mom they had to go to a friend's intervention, at shakespeare's of all places. but because dad's not half-assed he started planting the seeds for the impending fake intervention months ago. he even involved other friends in the whole deal. which probably made the surprise all that more, well, surprising. so yes, we ate, drank, made merry, and took pictures in a korean hooters shirt.
day two: met mom's co-workers for lunch and got insanely sick after eating taco bell. the good news is, a grilled stuffed burrito still tastes good coming up, half digested. it was slightly embarassing though. everyone was very nice and insisted it was okay if i needed to yak in the office bathroom. i made it home though. korean food's boring, but it's sure healthy. pretty much abandoned any plans and slept all day. news flash: jet lag is real, folks.
day three: ate an amazing sandwich at uprise bakery and had really good conversations with relative strangers and people i'd known for a long time but never really talked to. god bless these sporadic, innocuous conversations that made me feel warm and fuzzy. went to the asian affairs center (where i used to work, place that motivated me to come to korea in the first place) to meet up with scott and lesley. gotta be honest, being in an office full of korean students in columbia, missouri while on my vacation from korea didn't really sit well with me. it just made me very tense. went to booche's and got beers. met another friend, then we all went to addison's for more beers and appetizers. their nachos fucking own. then it was off to flat branch where i couldn't keep my eyes open. sort of passed out at the table, much to everyone's thinly-veiled disappointment. slept at lesley's. her house was amazing, filled with all sorts of tokens of her world travels. i like this chick a lot. regret that i didn't get to know her better while i was still in missouri. i'm sort of lacking in the girl friends arena, so when i do meet a girl that i don't want to punch, it stands out as a significant event.
day four: woke up and had a really good conversation with lesley. yeah yeah, again with the "conversation." people converse everyday and take their ease of communication for granted. but for the first 7 months i worked in ilsan, "conversations" were things that didn't really occur on a regular basis. met a friend for breakfast at ernie's. scrambled eggs, french toast, sausage, buttery coffee (perhaps only i notice this). hallelujah. it's relatively easy in korea to find "western" food, but breakfast food is where i most feel the void. anyhoo...after breakfast went and ran errands, then went home to jc. took the huey dog for a long walk. we threw the stick around. or i threw the stick and he fetched it, as dogs tend to do.
day five: went out. drank at klik's, where jen brouk is the bartendress. fucking great to see her. slept on kelsey's couch. drank with scott. or, i drank and he watched.
day six: hung out in jeff city after driving home at 7 am in a car that has no heat. my knuckles were very cold. spent all day watching deliciously terrible cable tv (ahh, channel surfing). if anyone would have predicted how much "rock of love" i would watch during my vacation, i certainly wouldn't have believed them. but yes, i consider my life enriched by brett michaels' dating show. went back to como with the folks later that day to meet erica and scott for dinner at murray's. drank beers at flat branch first. i really miss erica. she's one of my favorite humans. she and scott were two of my partners in crime in suncheon. after murray's we went to do more drinking: mcnally's, lame 80s night at the blue note, blue moon with orange wedge at teller's. crashed on scott's floor. i remember drifting in and out of consciousness while they tried to entice me awake with domino's pizza. side note: domino's pizza is the most expensive pizza in korea.
day 7: lunch with lesley, scott, erica. then met mom to get new ink. it rules. german rilke quote. she got a shel silverstein picture on her ass. jon bush and kath are amazing humans. unfailingly nice to undeserving me.
day 8: dinner with chris at the korean restaurant in columbia, which i found to be eerily spot on. even the little dishes were the same. introduced chris to soju. they seemed to get along. went to a disappointing show at mojo's--call me lightning. live music was a big goal of the vacation, and when i'd seen these guys before at eastside, they were fucking crazy good. but this time there were only about 10 peeps there. bummer, yo. crashed on jen's couch.
day 9: dinner with mr. kim. he wanted to go to the korean restaurant again, which i was a little bitch about all day. actually dreading going there again (not that the food was bad. it wasn't. but the thought of going to a korean restaurant with my korean friend sounded like exactly what i didn't want to do). he called at the last minute and changed it to flat branch. thank you, pub burger. then i called a friend and proceeded to get retardedly drunk.
other notes about being home...i sort of stopped specifically cataloguing events after day nine, just seemed a little tedious.
being home wasn't as much of a shock as i thought it would be. there were some shocking things that came out of the mundane (woefully taken for granted) minutiae of missouri life: the first taste of boulevard weet after years of enduring the equivalent of mgd here in the korea; at the airport in seattle trying to comprehend a sea of different sized/shaped/colored people. sure, some americans are fat, but at least it's something different. it was also quite shocking to see normal people. it was clear to me that only in korea is everyone rushing to a fashion show.
hmmm, what else? wide open spaces, rolling hills, a visible horizon, cows. cemetaries. driving was also an incredible experience--i had a vague recollection of that giddy day a long time ago when i first drove alone. to wal-mart in a shitty white car with failing power steering. but this time i was headed to a bar and the tunes were vintage neil young. blissfully happy. i've turned into quite the sentamentalist round these parts, as inspiration and beauty are two things i rarely find. so when i stumble upon them these days, it really is a laudatory, revelatory experience, worthy of all the emotion i can conceivably heap upon it. missouri was a lot of those little, surprising nuggets of beauty. and then there were larger things of beauty, much more tangible and unexpected, but equally fleeting. ho hum. but i'll save those things for myself. which will be what gets me through these next 3 months until my current contract ends.
so yes, i've already hit a wall after a week back in this country, but i somehow view it as a less depressing wall than the so many that have preceeded today. sigh. there are still notions of my uncertain future to address--always a self-deprecating mess of a topic. THE FUTURE!!!!!!!! gross. i guess i would potentially find it as depressing to have it all figured out, much as i hate plans and concrete courses of action--or maybe i just claim to hate those things because they conveniently support my mindset. my contract ends in 3 months. so i have to do a lot of thinking about what comes next. here's what i'm entertaining:
-stay in korea for another year and clear my student loans/credit card debt. never been too keen on carrying those things around with me for years into the future. whether this means to stay with my current school or not remains to be seen. would require some serious negotiating on my part to put myself in a work situation that doesn't make me dread 6 out of the 7 days of the week.
-vietnam. take a month-long course there this summer and stay on for a year after completion of the course. this idea based on having yet to enroll for the course (meant to do that today, but instead i did nothing) and having never been to vietnam. woo hoo!
-china? hmmm....
-columbia? ha! bigger hmmm....this won’t happen. but i would be lying if i said i hadn’t considered it.
other vacation nugglets:
-house party replete with kegs o' beer and bands.
-through the deluge in springfield, mo, i spied a white trash man navigating the wet streets with a huge dead white bird slung over his shoulder. for reals. was it a swan? was it an albino turkey? was it a hallucination? i dunno.
-soup. casseroles. miracle whip. sour cream. grape gatorade. samuel smith oatmeal stout. velveeta shells and cheese (in case there was ever any doubt, it is indeed both the creamiest AND the dreamiest). chicken fried steak. foccacia.
-watching my older sister teach middle school choir and being fucking floored by how great she was at her job. i was both proud of and humbled by her. that was a fucking cool sensation.
v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n, we're gonna have a ball! if any place can be simultaneously depressing and uber-mega-clarifying, it would be missouri. i think i'll always have this sense of nostalgia for this place (see the sentimental end of this blog), but vacation was really great in that it sort of helped to quell this lingering and arguably misguided mystique i've let hover over the columbia, mo of my mind (only sort of. while i was home it seemed definitive, but now i'm reviewing these words from my korean perspective. one week back and i've already hit a wall. i'm nothing if not predictable.). there is/was something sterile and depressing about this oft revered/reviled pseudo-utopia that i had built up in my mind. nothing changes. sure, building facades, college students and hipster fashions change, but there was also this familiar feeling of stasis. it was honestly as comforting as it was tragic. but a lot of the same people leading their same lives and existing far below their potential. reminds me again of a hesse quote:
"a newly formulated, but strong resolve to place his actions and his life under the aegis of transcedence, to make of it a serenely resolute moving on, filling and then leaving behind him every stage along the way....let no sentiments of home detain us."
i really like that idea. life as a progression. i'd like to think i view my own life this way, despite how slow-going the progress tends to feel sometimes. i sort of interpret this "resolute moving on" as a fear of settling. which i don't think is exactly what hesse meant. he certainly wasn't suggesting "fear" as motivation, but rather the pursuit of "empowerment/enlightenment." i guess that could be a contrition vs. attrition argument. the end result could be the same, but how honest is the motivation. anyhoo, i feel shitty being so judgemental of others (or at least i'm willing to recognize that i SHOULD feel guilty), but i should emphasize that this judgement isn't unique to my korean/abroad perspective. i was one of those peeps who felt trapped in my own life (still do, funny how that sort of looming issue follows you around the globe). this is also not to imply that i see all people who live in missouri as pathetic or without overriding desires and motivations that color their lives however vibrantly or dull-ly. in fact, there's nothing i would like more than to be in columbia, mo and to be HAPPY to be there, like so many others genuinely are. isn't that what everyone wants (substitute your own city)? a good friend told me a long time ago that "happiness isn't a place." true dat. unless it's the name of a restaurant or bar or something. i guess it's just fascinating to me when people AREN'T torn up inside over a palpable lack (yes, i've argued this in my brain--"nothing" can actually be felt) of any life pursuits, any "transcendence." i was listening to some sort of horrible half-formed semantic argument (in english!) in a coffee shop in my home state. and it was nice to be annoyed by this supposed comfort. so if i must come to a point, both related and unrelated to all this other bullshit i'm spewing, i guess it's this: so many people seek validation from outside sources (hey, i'm guilty too!) instead of taking it upon themselves to enact positive changes in their lives. and yeah, this is a microcosm of my life in missouri in general. the familiarity of even the most dismal of prospects is still comforting.
moving from that rambling to other rambling...let's do a recap of vacation events, shall we?
day one: mikey picked me up from the airport, and i was convinced at this point that sitting in a car with him for 2 hours made my entire trip home worth it. he listens to me but doesn't judge, like so many other people close to me do. sounds like a simple enough idea, but it's rarer than most would expect. so he delivered me to columbia, mo and shakespeare's and my parents. my vacation was a big surprise for my mom. tried to keep it quiet, as i've never been big on undue (or due, for that matter) fanfare. dad had concocted some huge lie 2 months in the making just to get mom to come out to shakespeare's for the surprise "reveal." it was pretty great to be able to give her that gift. when i first told dad i was coming home, i thought it would be cool to surprise mom. so dad ultimately told mom they had to go to a friend's intervention, at shakespeare's of all places. but because dad's not half-assed he started planting the seeds for the impending fake intervention months ago. he even involved other friends in the whole deal. which probably made the surprise all that more, well, surprising. so yes, we ate, drank, made merry, and took pictures in a korean hooters shirt.
day two: met mom's co-workers for lunch and got insanely sick after eating taco bell. the good news is, a grilled stuffed burrito still tastes good coming up, half digested. it was slightly embarassing though. everyone was very nice and insisted it was okay if i needed to yak in the office bathroom. i made it home though. korean food's boring, but it's sure healthy. pretty much abandoned any plans and slept all day. news flash: jet lag is real, folks.
day three: ate an amazing sandwich at uprise bakery and had really good conversations with relative strangers and people i'd known for a long time but never really talked to. god bless these sporadic, innocuous conversations that made me feel warm and fuzzy. went to the asian affairs center (where i used to work, place that motivated me to come to korea in the first place) to meet up with scott and lesley. gotta be honest, being in an office full of korean students in columbia, missouri while on my vacation from korea didn't really sit well with me. it just made me very tense. went to booche's and got beers. met another friend, then we all went to addison's for more beers and appetizers. their nachos fucking own. then it was off to flat branch where i couldn't keep my eyes open. sort of passed out at the table, much to everyone's thinly-veiled disappointment. slept at lesley's. her house was amazing, filled with all sorts of tokens of her world travels. i like this chick a lot. regret that i didn't get to know her better while i was still in missouri. i'm sort of lacking in the girl friends arena, so when i do meet a girl that i don't want to punch, it stands out as a significant event.
day four: woke up and had a really good conversation with lesley. yeah yeah, again with the "conversation." people converse everyday and take their ease of communication for granted. but for the first 7 months i worked in ilsan, "conversations" were things that didn't really occur on a regular basis. met a friend for breakfast at ernie's. scrambled eggs, french toast, sausage, buttery coffee (perhaps only i notice this). hallelujah. it's relatively easy in korea to find "western" food, but breakfast food is where i most feel the void. anyhoo...after breakfast went and ran errands, then went home to jc. took the huey dog for a long walk. we threw the stick around. or i threw the stick and he fetched it, as dogs tend to do.
day five: went out. drank at klik's, where jen brouk is the bartendress. fucking great to see her. slept on kelsey's couch. drank with scott. or, i drank and he watched.
day six: hung out in jeff city after driving home at 7 am in a car that has no heat. my knuckles were very cold. spent all day watching deliciously terrible cable tv (ahh, channel surfing). if anyone would have predicted how much "rock of love" i would watch during my vacation, i certainly wouldn't have believed them. but yes, i consider my life enriched by brett michaels' dating show. went back to como with the folks later that day to meet erica and scott for dinner at murray's. drank beers at flat branch first. i really miss erica. she's one of my favorite humans. she and scott were two of my partners in crime in suncheon. after murray's we went to do more drinking: mcnally's, lame 80s night at the blue note, blue moon with orange wedge at teller's. crashed on scott's floor. i remember drifting in and out of consciousness while they tried to entice me awake with domino's pizza. side note: domino's pizza is the most expensive pizza in korea.
day 7: lunch with lesley, scott, erica. then met mom to get new ink. it rules. german rilke quote. she got a shel silverstein picture on her ass. jon bush and kath are amazing humans. unfailingly nice to undeserving me.
day 8: dinner with chris at the korean restaurant in columbia, which i found to be eerily spot on. even the little dishes were the same. introduced chris to soju. they seemed to get along. went to a disappointing show at mojo's--call me lightning. live music was a big goal of the vacation, and when i'd seen these guys before at eastside, they were fucking crazy good. but this time there were only about 10 peeps there. bummer, yo. crashed on jen's couch.
day 9: dinner with mr. kim. he wanted to go to the korean restaurant again, which i was a little bitch about all day. actually dreading going there again (not that the food was bad. it wasn't. but the thought of going to a korean restaurant with my korean friend sounded like exactly what i didn't want to do). he called at the last minute and changed it to flat branch. thank you, pub burger. then i called a friend and proceeded to get retardedly drunk.
other notes about being home...i sort of stopped specifically cataloguing events after day nine, just seemed a little tedious.
being home wasn't as much of a shock as i thought it would be. there were some shocking things that came out of the mundane (woefully taken for granted) minutiae of missouri life: the first taste of boulevard weet after years of enduring the equivalent of mgd here in the korea; at the airport in seattle trying to comprehend a sea of different sized/shaped/colored people. sure, some americans are fat, but at least it's something different. it was also quite shocking to see normal people. it was clear to me that only in korea is everyone rushing to a fashion show.
hmmm, what else? wide open spaces, rolling hills, a visible horizon, cows. cemetaries. driving was also an incredible experience--i had a vague recollection of that giddy day a long time ago when i first drove alone. to wal-mart in a shitty white car with failing power steering. but this time i was headed to a bar and the tunes were vintage neil young. blissfully happy. i've turned into quite the sentamentalist round these parts, as inspiration and beauty are two things i rarely find. so when i stumble upon them these days, it really is a laudatory, revelatory experience, worthy of all the emotion i can conceivably heap upon it. missouri was a lot of those little, surprising nuggets of beauty. and then there were larger things of beauty, much more tangible and unexpected, but equally fleeting. ho hum. but i'll save those things for myself. which will be what gets me through these next 3 months until my current contract ends.
so yes, i've already hit a wall after a week back in this country, but i somehow view it as a less depressing wall than the so many that have preceeded today. sigh. there are still notions of my uncertain future to address--always a self-deprecating mess of a topic. THE FUTURE!!!!!!!! gross. i guess i would potentially find it as depressing to have it all figured out, much as i hate plans and concrete courses of action--or maybe i just claim to hate those things because they conveniently support my mindset. my contract ends in 3 months. so i have to do a lot of thinking about what comes next. here's what i'm entertaining:
-stay in korea for another year and clear my student loans/credit card debt. never been too keen on carrying those things around with me for years into the future. whether this means to stay with my current school or not remains to be seen. would require some serious negotiating on my part to put myself in a work situation that doesn't make me dread 6 out of the 7 days of the week.
-vietnam. take a month-long course there this summer and stay on for a year after completion of the course. this idea based on having yet to enroll for the course (meant to do that today, but instead i did nothing) and having never been to vietnam. woo hoo!
-china? hmmm....
-columbia? ha! bigger hmmm....this won’t happen. but i would be lying if i said i hadn’t considered it.
other vacation nugglets:
-house party replete with kegs o' beer and bands.
-through the deluge in springfield, mo, i spied a white trash man navigating the wet streets with a huge dead white bird slung over his shoulder. for reals. was it a swan? was it an albino turkey? was it a hallucination? i dunno.
-soup. casseroles. miracle whip. sour cream. grape gatorade. samuel smith oatmeal stout. velveeta shells and cheese (in case there was ever any doubt, it is indeed both the creamiest AND the dreamiest). chicken fried steak. foccacia.
-watching my older sister teach middle school choir and being fucking floored by how great she was at her job. i was both proud of and humbled by her. that was a fucking cool sensation.
Friday, March 28, 2008
back to work
first day back at work yesterday and i scored a harmonica solo from a 4th grader named angella.
she played 2 harmonicas simultaneously.
so that was unexpected.
she played 2 harmonicas simultaneously.
so that was unexpected.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
one more thing (for now)...
i uploaded all my pictures from my wild and crazy missouri vacation to my flickr page. in case the few peeps who look at the blog are unawares of said page, the link's in my "links" section. fitting, eh?
home again home again jiggity jig
where "home" equals ilsan, south korea. sigh. not sure whether that’s a good sigh or a bad sigh; it’s a nonpartisan sigh for now. with good reason. i slept for approximately 12 hours today after making my way from jeff city, mo to the rok in over 24 hours. and yet here i am, wide awake at 4 in the am, drinking a hite tall boy and eating a nutty bar. 1 nutty bar down, 11 to go. then i get to move on to the peanut butter log thingys. oh, little debbie, how i do love you!
before the ensuing chronicling of my vacation, i should probably apologize in general to the many people i wanted to see (either again or for the first time upon my return) but didn’t get to. i am an asshole. i know this. since we all know it, there’s no use dwelling on it. the truth is, i’ve always hated making plans (or being proactive, for that matter), and as soon as i make a plan, i’m immediately anxious about the fact that it might fall through. perhaps this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, i dunno. an ultimate and overriding fear of rejection/disappointment. this dismal fact is only compounded by my fear/hatred of the telephone. anyhoo, the fact is that when a plan does fall through, i do actually feel shitty. there were lots of folks i was sposed to meet during my days in columbia who i didn’t. a lot of this was due to some schedule changes, the commuting to/from columbia, jeff city and springfield, as well as my general mood during the last week and also to a bonafide illness the day before (and of) my departure. as it turned out, there were very few people who i even saw on more than one occassion. and that’s a bummer. especially since i have no idea when i’ll be stateside again.
anyhoo, i suppose i’m done with excuses, at least for now. but i’m sorry if i didn’t get to see peeps as often as we both would have liked. if you didn’t get to see me (and i didn’t get to see you), find comfort in the fact that i’m really not that cool or entertaining anymore. you know, not like i USED to be.
shucks. not really sure where to start here with the recap. i guess the flights back to korea are a good place to start. for now reverse chronological order, or something like that, seems like a good idea. and i’m going to try to save waxing philosophical/overly-analytical (by my low standards) for any later blogs. of course it’s tempting to tackle notions of home and uncertainty and transience and my future and relationships (friendly or otherwise) here, but i’m going to fight the urge, as there is plenty of future blog space, not to mention vacation digestion, that support my postponement of such themes. soul-searching is one of my favorite pastimes...
back to logistics...headed up to stl on saturday around 2:30 with the parentals. drank some beers/cokes at an airport bar with good quesadillas and bad stevie wonder covers. i guess it’s worth noting that in my opinion any cover of stevie wonder is going to be bad. so there.
had to do the all-to-familiar reorganizing of luggage at check-in in order to get both bags to their santioned weights. and i still had to pay $25. i sure returned to korea with more shit, and not just little debbies. bought lots o’ shoes and clothes, reading materials, items for my co-teachers, items for my students, fetched items for the twin sister, fetched items for friends here, and at least one other fun item that i don’t need to mention in detail, lest i make anyone reading this blush, namely myself (i think we all know that’s not possible...whatev). but hey, it glows in the dark, so that’s pretty fucking cool.
flight to lax was fine. 3.5 hours (more, actually, because we were late). then i had to navigate an airport under renovation with the nastiest bathrooms i’ve seen stateside. there also appeared to be claw marks on all the doors...inexplicable, mysterious, everything a public restroom should be. i thought it was standard at airports to have those plastic-wrapped toilets that sound like they’re from the future, or at the very least to have locks on doors. alas, no. if i’ve ever felt like i’ve been in an appropriate place to get shanked, this bathroom was that place in my mind. no shanking occured. so that’s a good thing.
drank a beer in an airport bar where the workers seemed genuinely shocked and dismayed by my request for an amber bock at 11 pm on a saturday night in their bar. now that’s just plain unamerican. tried to change my seat after deciding that the window seat was probably not the best position for someone with long legs on a 14 hour flight. but that chick was a bitch too. seems like peeps in airports are required to be disgruntled, even if for no apparent reason. so those events set my mood. i sat and waited for my flight, stewing the whole time. i wasn’t quite prepared to be in a sea of meandering koreans again. and yet there i was, on vacation from korea, surrounded by the all-too-familiar hordes of people milling about with no particular sense of direction, oblivious to the fact that there might be people trying to make their way through the crowd en route to some other gate taking them somewhere other than korea. but once i got on the plane everything was cool. was seated next to a chinese woman and her 6 year old son, who would eventually become my best friend for about 5 hours. they were headed to chengdu and had 2 flights to go after the long-ass flight to incheon. anyhoo, as soon as i hit the seat i passed out. was in and out of sleep for a long time, all the while a small child elsewhere on the plane was screaming. and i guess there’s no way to quietly scream.
when i woke up for good, the 6-year-old chinese kid was next to me. and he wanted to play. so we raced each other stacking the 12 drink cups he had acquired during the flight. then we took turns trying to catch cups with other cups. that game didn’t work so well, and seemed to annoy the people behind us when a cup flew in their direction. one man actually returned the wayward cup to us, but it was full of his trash. asshole. i never got this kid’s name, but he was so fucking awesome. his english was great, as he’d been living in o’fallon/st. louis for 2 years (his dad worked for pfizer). although he did have the same problem saying his r’s that i had when i was little. i suppose that endeared me to him. we also spent a good half hour talking on the phone/tv handsets in each of our chairs. his remote was a "magical" remote that could turn aliens into people (me) and turn headphones into money or pizza. we decided to have a macaroni pizza party in the sky, where i lived. but it was only a set-up for him to turn all my alien friends into bugs. i negotiated them into butterflies instead. after that it was the assembly of a mini thomas the train and about an hour of dora the explorer. he noticed every time i switched the channel. after that the plane started to descend and his ears hurt, so fun time turned into crying-in-mom’s-lap time.
landed in incheon, and it was smooth sailing. although it’s very hard to lift a ginormo bag o’ luggage onto a bus when the handles have broken off. i managed. again with the sea of koreans not getting the fuck out of the way. it was very obvious that i had 2 giant bags of luggage following me, and yet all the students in their uniforms just stood there, blocking the entire sidewalk. some chick got testy when i ran over her foot. to which i responded "get the fuck out of the way." i’m sure the only word she understood was "fuck."
wheeled my shit from the bus stop to my apartment. where everything was just as i had forgotten. unpacked and passed out.
guess this is all for now. sleep doesn’t beckon, but i’m forcing it. work later this week. yuck.
before the ensuing chronicling of my vacation, i should probably apologize in general to the many people i wanted to see (either again or for the first time upon my return) but didn’t get to. i am an asshole. i know this. since we all know it, there’s no use dwelling on it. the truth is, i’ve always hated making plans (or being proactive, for that matter), and as soon as i make a plan, i’m immediately anxious about the fact that it might fall through. perhaps this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, i dunno. an ultimate and overriding fear of rejection/disappointment. this dismal fact is only compounded by my fear/hatred of the telephone. anyhoo, the fact is that when a plan does fall through, i do actually feel shitty. there were lots of folks i was sposed to meet during my days in columbia who i didn’t. a lot of this was due to some schedule changes, the commuting to/from columbia, jeff city and springfield, as well as my general mood during the last week and also to a bonafide illness the day before (and of) my departure. as it turned out, there were very few people who i even saw on more than one occassion. and that’s a bummer. especially since i have no idea when i’ll be stateside again.
anyhoo, i suppose i’m done with excuses, at least for now. but i’m sorry if i didn’t get to see peeps as often as we both would have liked. if you didn’t get to see me (and i didn’t get to see you), find comfort in the fact that i’m really not that cool or entertaining anymore. you know, not like i USED to be.
shucks. not really sure where to start here with the recap. i guess the flights back to korea are a good place to start. for now reverse chronological order, or something like that, seems like a good idea. and i’m going to try to save waxing philosophical/overly-analytical (by my low standards) for any later blogs. of course it’s tempting to tackle notions of home and uncertainty and transience and my future and relationships (friendly or otherwise) here, but i’m going to fight the urge, as there is plenty of future blog space, not to mention vacation digestion, that support my postponement of such themes. soul-searching is one of my favorite pastimes...
back to logistics...headed up to stl on saturday around 2:30 with the parentals. drank some beers/cokes at an airport bar with good quesadillas and bad stevie wonder covers. i guess it’s worth noting that in my opinion any cover of stevie wonder is going to be bad. so there.
had to do the all-to-familiar reorganizing of luggage at check-in in order to get both bags to their santioned weights. and i still had to pay $25. i sure returned to korea with more shit, and not just little debbies. bought lots o’ shoes and clothes, reading materials, items for my co-teachers, items for my students, fetched items for the twin sister, fetched items for friends here, and at least one other fun item that i don’t need to mention in detail, lest i make anyone reading this blush, namely myself (i think we all know that’s not possible...whatev). but hey, it glows in the dark, so that’s pretty fucking cool.
flight to lax was fine. 3.5 hours (more, actually, because we were late). then i had to navigate an airport under renovation with the nastiest bathrooms i’ve seen stateside. there also appeared to be claw marks on all the doors...inexplicable, mysterious, everything a public restroom should be. i thought it was standard at airports to have those plastic-wrapped toilets that sound like they’re from the future, or at the very least to have locks on doors. alas, no. if i’ve ever felt like i’ve been in an appropriate place to get shanked, this bathroom was that place in my mind. no shanking occured. so that’s a good thing.
drank a beer in an airport bar where the workers seemed genuinely shocked and dismayed by my request for an amber bock at 11 pm on a saturday night in their bar. now that’s just plain unamerican. tried to change my seat after deciding that the window seat was probably not the best position for someone with long legs on a 14 hour flight. but that chick was a bitch too. seems like peeps in airports are required to be disgruntled, even if for no apparent reason. so those events set my mood. i sat and waited for my flight, stewing the whole time. i wasn’t quite prepared to be in a sea of meandering koreans again. and yet there i was, on vacation from korea, surrounded by the all-too-familiar hordes of people milling about with no particular sense of direction, oblivious to the fact that there might be people trying to make their way through the crowd en route to some other gate taking them somewhere other than korea. but once i got on the plane everything was cool. was seated next to a chinese woman and her 6 year old son, who would eventually become my best friend for about 5 hours. they were headed to chengdu and had 2 flights to go after the long-ass flight to incheon. anyhoo, as soon as i hit the seat i passed out. was in and out of sleep for a long time, all the while a small child elsewhere on the plane was screaming. and i guess there’s no way to quietly scream.
when i woke up for good, the 6-year-old chinese kid was next to me. and he wanted to play. so we raced each other stacking the 12 drink cups he had acquired during the flight. then we took turns trying to catch cups with other cups. that game didn’t work so well, and seemed to annoy the people behind us when a cup flew in their direction. one man actually returned the wayward cup to us, but it was full of his trash. asshole. i never got this kid’s name, but he was so fucking awesome. his english was great, as he’d been living in o’fallon/st. louis for 2 years (his dad worked for pfizer). although he did have the same problem saying his r’s that i had when i was little. i suppose that endeared me to him. we also spent a good half hour talking on the phone/tv handsets in each of our chairs. his remote was a "magical" remote that could turn aliens into people (me) and turn headphones into money or pizza. we decided to have a macaroni pizza party in the sky, where i lived. but it was only a set-up for him to turn all my alien friends into bugs. i negotiated them into butterflies instead. after that it was the assembly of a mini thomas the train and about an hour of dora the explorer. he noticed every time i switched the channel. after that the plane started to descend and his ears hurt, so fun time turned into crying-in-mom’s-lap time.
landed in incheon, and it was smooth sailing. although it’s very hard to lift a ginormo bag o’ luggage onto a bus when the handles have broken off. i managed. again with the sea of koreans not getting the fuck out of the way. it was very obvious that i had 2 giant bags of luggage following me, and yet all the students in their uniforms just stood there, blocking the entire sidewalk. some chick got testy when i ran over her foot. to which i responded "get the fuck out of the way." i’m sure the only word she understood was "fuck."
wheeled my shit from the bus stop to my apartment. where everything was just as i had forgotten. unpacked and passed out.
guess this is all for now. sleep doesn’t beckon, but i’m forcing it. work later this week. yuck.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
i'll be brief
in missouri for a much needed vacation from korea and work. got some new ink yesterday. it rules. and it itches a little bit. been drinking lots of good beer, eating things that don't taste like korea and catching up with friends and family. it's been pretty chill and awesome.
that's all for now.
that's all for now.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
character sketch of a samwich
i have a particularly funny student in one of my elementary school classes. i believe homeboy is in the 5th grade. the majority of my students keep their korean names, which i've grown accustomed to, while some of the more brazen of of the bunch boast english names (including such gems as "diva"--a mousy girl whose palpable lack of self-confidence totally underscores such a moniker. perhaps the bolstering of her self-esteem was the precise impetus for her name choice...).
anyhoo, this particular dude's name is sam. he's a funny looking kid--bug eyes. bad bowl haircut. teeth too big for his mouth. encumbered by very large ears (i'll dwell on these "protuberances" later). he initially didn't take too kindly to my renaming him "samwich." mostly because now i don't even have to say it, but all the other children in class are happy to chime in (same with peter, a.k.a. peter panty, another oft-taunted munchkin. he threatened to change his name. idle threats, apparently. i guess wee elementary folk know no other kind of threats...).
so one day i decided it was time to give samwich a new name. he was promoted to samburger. which quickly escalated to samgyupseol (korean bacon). so now i've given samburger's peers 3 options from which to choose when they decide to tease him. i suppose that's what makes me a good teacher.
but back to those "protuberances" (such a good word it deserves to be typed twice). samwich is obsessed with his ears, and by association, so is the rest of the class. they're already big, like the oversized, highly unrealistic wings of a child's caricature-esque butterfly sketch. but their sheer size is not where the mystery lies. these are some stretchy ears. he's constantly pulling the lobes away from his jawline, only to let them flop back into place like over-worked rubber bands.
in a 50 minute class, samburger's hands are on/in his ears for a good 40 of those minutes. the best is when he takes his mechanical pencil (a korean wouldn't dare disgrace himself with a regular number 2 pencil. a korean child's pencil case and all its accoutrements is/are a whole nother beast of a blog. for serious...) and winds it up in his ear. he'll repeat this motion, unawares that class has stopped and we're all just staring at him, mostly at the dreamy expression on his face as his ears do what they do best.
to compound his bizarre habit, he also has his own catchphrase, originating from...somewhere yet to be decided. at any point in class he will burst out of his ear fumbling reverie to shout "oh my baby doll!"
uh, yeah. so that's sam. one of my faves.
anyhoo, this particular dude's name is sam. he's a funny looking kid--bug eyes. bad bowl haircut. teeth too big for his mouth. encumbered by very large ears (i'll dwell on these "protuberances" later). he initially didn't take too kindly to my renaming him "samwich." mostly because now i don't even have to say it, but all the other children in class are happy to chime in (same with peter, a.k.a. peter panty, another oft-taunted munchkin. he threatened to change his name. idle threats, apparently. i guess wee elementary folk know no other kind of threats...).
so one day i decided it was time to give samwich a new name. he was promoted to samburger. which quickly escalated to samgyupseol (korean bacon). so now i've given samburger's peers 3 options from which to choose when they decide to tease him. i suppose that's what makes me a good teacher.
but back to those "protuberances" (such a good word it deserves to be typed twice). samwich is obsessed with his ears, and by association, so is the rest of the class. they're already big, like the oversized, highly unrealistic wings of a child's caricature-esque butterfly sketch. but their sheer size is not where the mystery lies. these are some stretchy ears. he's constantly pulling the lobes away from his jawline, only to let them flop back into place like over-worked rubber bands.
in a 50 minute class, samburger's hands are on/in his ears for a good 40 of those minutes. the best is when he takes his mechanical pencil (a korean wouldn't dare disgrace himself with a regular number 2 pencil. a korean child's pencil case and all its accoutrements is/are a whole nother beast of a blog. for serious...) and winds it up in his ear. he'll repeat this motion, unawares that class has stopped and we're all just staring at him, mostly at the dreamy expression on his face as his ears do what they do best.
to compound his bizarre habit, he also has his own catchphrase, originating from...somewhere yet to be decided. at any point in class he will burst out of his ear fumbling reverie to shout "oh my baby doll!"
uh, yeah. so that's sam. one of my faves.
Monday, February 04, 2008
hey old timer, let's gum some noodles!
yesterday i had an arguably strange day. i guess that makes it sound like more than it actually was. no matter. it having been a sunday and my tv not working very well, i decided to leave my apartment and head to insadong--aka "traditional culture street" of seoul, simply for the virtue of it not being ilsan. i need to find a new haunt for my outings, i think. insadong's really not as interesting as i originally thought, salty old man aside (i'll get to that). unless you're actually there to purchase traditional cultural things (which i guess hite beer is) or drink free hot chocolate handed out at random promotional booths whose purpose[s] you'll never discern. at any rate, it's certainly a welcome departure from merely venturing to the local starbucks less than a football field away from my apartment. i miss the cramped, narrow streets of other neighborhoods in korea--the potential for complete disorientation. there are virtually no little side streets to explore, no dirty alleys in which to make startling discoveries to write home about.
so i got off the subway and stumbled upon tapgol park, convinced that i was going the wrong way towards insadong (i usually get off at another stop), an altogether comforting and pleasant sensation, due simply to its frequency.
anyhoo, tapgol park was free and cultural, and thus exactly what i was looking for. the plan had been to go to this park and then to get coffee and write (yes, profound important life-affirming things), but instead i met this old man with bad oral hygiene who happened to speak english remarkably well. in my book, that's a more than adequate substitute for anything i had planned. let's talk about these teeth for a minute. my vision was inexplicably drawn to them. it could have perhaps been the worst case of mouth rot i've ever seen. how ironic then, that the english that spewed forth from this barnacled orifice was spot on. he had maybe 4 intact, visible teeth. i can't imagine that anything required for actual chewing was left. there also appeared to be quite a bit of calcification near the gum line--stalagtites/mites where the liquid accumulation of the ages sort of gunks up at the base. he was genuinely kind though, and he showed me pictures of his son and then told me he wanted to treat me to lunch. for some reason, my guard has been down lately, so situations like this that would normally make me wary seem more interesting than anything i would have possibly done WITHOUT an old man with poor oral hygiene. so i wandered around insadong with this dude for about an hour, while he talked about his son and asked me about mormons (the first thing that popped into his head when i mentioned america. he was impressed that i've actually been somewhere he's heard of). then we found a dirty chinese restaurant and ate jja jjang myun (noodles). he had insisted on paying, but i somehow felt really bad about letting what appeared to be a 90 year-old man pay for my lunch. how does a guy like that actually generate income? i'm not exactly sure how pension and social security work here in the korea, but let's just say he didn't look like he had money to be throwing around, even if it was on a cheap meal at a seedy chinese restaurant. anyway, while we were eating he explained why he was cutting all his food up into little pieces. funny to hear him acknowledge his dental shortcomings--"my teeth don't chew so good." he also said that he'd dabbled in screenwriting in his youth. again, how much of this is credible, i have no idea. but when you meet someone that old, their mere existence in itself, devoid of any miniscule fabrications, is still undeniably venerable and humbling. anyway, he said if i ever wanted to meet him again, i could find him in the park every sunday. so i just might do that. what could have been really a really awkward situation was ultimately one of those strange scenarios that made me think "huh, did i just spend the afternoon of my day off hanging out with a random 90 year-old korean man?" and it's quite pleasing to be able to truthfully answer, "well yes. yes i did."
moving on...rereading some ezra pound and rainer maria rilke lately. i need to remember these "friends" when i start to feel shitty. i sometimes forget just how good "good" poetry can be. it's sort of been a re-epiphany these past couple of days. if that's something that's even possible. i guess i always seem to re-live previous moments of clarity. one would think that said moments would reveal themselves more clearly each time. alas, not the case. i've been living a pretty uninspired life for a long time, it's become increasingly difficult to find the beauty in the mundane, the routine, the quotidian events comprising my life. and when things get that way--or in this case, stay that way--i become so apathetic in my apathy, to the degree that it cements and becomes an immovable thing unto itself. that very apathy becomes a part of the routine that generated it all to begin with. yikes! but then i read
"if your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it, blame yourself. admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches, because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place."
couple that with a snippet from 'archaic torso of apollo'--
"for here there is no place that does not see you. you must change your life."
at the moments i read these things, the air i breathe, the daily space i occupy changes perceptibly. i guess i've realized that there is actually something beautiful about all of this, even my seemingly perpetual discontent. and i find this mode of revelation much more powerful and convincing than any music these days. whatever. i'm starting to sound new agey, encumbered by my usual pastiche of overtly sentimental nugglets, but it's how i feel, so therefore somewhat valid. sigh. damn the english lit major in me. but i guess writing stupid blogs would be the way i reconcile the huge debt i still owe for my uber-practical degree.
moving on...i wonder when korea will decide the christmas season is over. vestiges of jesus, santa and general merriment still adorn the unlikeliest of places. not that there's anything wrong with unchecked traces of merriment, i guess...
oh yeah, i can't forget the drunk gypsies in ilsan park. a woman intepretive dancing and spilling a milky green bottle of makkali all over herself. the man drumming with bone earrings and a tiny ponytail. this old woman--both her eyebrows and robes meticulously applied--confusing judgment and mocking contempt with rapt adulation in her state of innebriation. the indignity of it all. but i guess i was one of those doing the judging. seems to be my role in life...
i guess i should make some mentionings of school, since that's been my life for the past month or so. i have some smart, introspective students. it's really incredible to think of these 6th grade students and their shockingly sophisticated inquiries. quite humbling. i miss that innocence and genunine inquisitiveness. won-ho's astute observations about the goal of reading and the purpose of religion. wise beyond his years and unfettered by a foreign language.
i saw bobby mcferrin last weekend in seoul. it was good, but not as good as i remembered him being in columbia. i'm not sure i was totally sober the first time i saw him, so that probably contributed to the awe of the time.
so i got off the subway and stumbled upon tapgol park, convinced that i was going the wrong way towards insadong (i usually get off at another stop), an altogether comforting and pleasant sensation, due simply to its frequency.
anyhoo, tapgol park was free and cultural, and thus exactly what i was looking for. the plan had been to go to this park and then to get coffee and write (yes, profound important life-affirming things), but instead i met this old man with bad oral hygiene who happened to speak english remarkably well. in my book, that's a more than adequate substitute for anything i had planned. let's talk about these teeth for a minute. my vision was inexplicably drawn to them. it could have perhaps been the worst case of mouth rot i've ever seen. how ironic then, that the english that spewed forth from this barnacled orifice was spot on. he had maybe 4 intact, visible teeth. i can't imagine that anything required for actual chewing was left. there also appeared to be quite a bit of calcification near the gum line--stalagtites/mites where the liquid accumulation of the ages sort of gunks up at the base. he was genuinely kind though, and he showed me pictures of his son and then told me he wanted to treat me to lunch. for some reason, my guard has been down lately, so situations like this that would normally make me wary seem more interesting than anything i would have possibly done WITHOUT an old man with poor oral hygiene. so i wandered around insadong with this dude for about an hour, while he talked about his son and asked me about mormons (the first thing that popped into his head when i mentioned america. he was impressed that i've actually been somewhere he's heard of). then we found a dirty chinese restaurant and ate jja jjang myun (noodles). he had insisted on paying, but i somehow felt really bad about letting what appeared to be a 90 year-old man pay for my lunch. how does a guy like that actually generate income? i'm not exactly sure how pension and social security work here in the korea, but let's just say he didn't look like he had money to be throwing around, even if it was on a cheap meal at a seedy chinese restaurant. anyway, while we were eating he explained why he was cutting all his food up into little pieces. funny to hear him acknowledge his dental shortcomings--"my teeth don't chew so good." he also said that he'd dabbled in screenwriting in his youth. again, how much of this is credible, i have no idea. but when you meet someone that old, their mere existence in itself, devoid of any miniscule fabrications, is still undeniably venerable and humbling. anyway, he said if i ever wanted to meet him again, i could find him in the park every sunday. so i just might do that. what could have been really a really awkward situation was ultimately one of those strange scenarios that made me think "huh, did i just spend the afternoon of my day off hanging out with a random 90 year-old korean man?" and it's quite pleasing to be able to truthfully answer, "well yes. yes i did."
moving on...rereading some ezra pound and rainer maria rilke lately. i need to remember these "friends" when i start to feel shitty. i sometimes forget just how good "good" poetry can be. it's sort of been a re-epiphany these past couple of days. if that's something that's even possible. i guess i always seem to re-live previous moments of clarity. one would think that said moments would reveal themselves more clearly each time. alas, not the case. i've been living a pretty uninspired life for a long time, it's become increasingly difficult to find the beauty in the mundane, the routine, the quotidian events comprising my life. and when things get that way--or in this case, stay that way--i become so apathetic in my apathy, to the degree that it cements and becomes an immovable thing unto itself. that very apathy becomes a part of the routine that generated it all to begin with. yikes! but then i read
"if your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it, blame yourself. admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches, because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place."
couple that with a snippet from 'archaic torso of apollo'--
"for here there is no place that does not see you. you must change your life."
at the moments i read these things, the air i breathe, the daily space i occupy changes perceptibly. i guess i've realized that there is actually something beautiful about all of this, even my seemingly perpetual discontent. and i find this mode of revelation much more powerful and convincing than any music these days. whatever. i'm starting to sound new agey, encumbered by my usual pastiche of overtly sentimental nugglets, but it's how i feel, so therefore somewhat valid. sigh. damn the english lit major in me. but i guess writing stupid blogs would be the way i reconcile the huge debt i still owe for my uber-practical degree.
moving on...i wonder when korea will decide the christmas season is over. vestiges of jesus, santa and general merriment still adorn the unlikeliest of places. not that there's anything wrong with unchecked traces of merriment, i guess...
oh yeah, i can't forget the drunk gypsies in ilsan park. a woman intepretive dancing and spilling a milky green bottle of makkali all over herself. the man drumming with bone earrings and a tiny ponytail. this old woman--both her eyebrows and robes meticulously applied--confusing judgment and mocking contempt with rapt adulation in her state of innebriation. the indignity of it all. but i guess i was one of those doing the judging. seems to be my role in life...
i guess i should make some mentionings of school, since that's been my life for the past month or so. i have some smart, introspective students. it's really incredible to think of these 6th grade students and their shockingly sophisticated inquiries. quite humbling. i miss that innocence and genunine inquisitiveness. won-ho's astute observations about the goal of reading and the purpose of religion. wise beyond his years and unfettered by a foreign language.
i saw bobby mcferrin last weekend in seoul. it was good, but not as good as i remembered him being in columbia. i'm not sure i was totally sober the first time i saw him, so that probably contributed to the awe of the time.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
all quiet on the eastern front
winter intensives started at ye olde job. which means i'm back to working 12 hour days. it's dark when i go to work. it's dark when i leave work...dawn and dusk conspiring to convince me that no time has actually passed. then i come home. drink shitty beer. try to muster up the energy to eat. which usually just results in consuming partially frozen sticks of imitation crab meat. i don't even like crab meat. real deal or otherwise.
speaking of meat (always the best of segues...), i edited several essays yesterday about things that kids like. high on the list of "likes" was "pig meat." call me crazy, but i think that's funny. easily entertained these days. cabin fever. or i guess "english academy in korea with only one native speaker" fever, in this case.
i must at this point note that all my korean co-workers are great, and communication really isn't a problem (duh, they're english teachers), but there's definitely this insurmountable "otherness" that i think we all feel but fail to acknowledge. but i guess why would we acknowledge it...
these days in particular, their very efforts at friendship and inclusion are ultimately repellent to me when i've already been at work for at least 12 hours. i think they're weirded out that i don't want to eat lunch with them, or hang out after work. but after spending that much time with the same people and in a particular building, when extrication becomes permissible, then fuck yeah i'm leaving.
so yes, i've been in a foul mood, due mostly in part to the jobby job. other stuff too that i'll save for myself, as a result of living too much in my head. as for the job, it's all confusion as of late, and as soon as i start to feel like i know what the hell i'm doing, my co-workers change something again. apparently no one thought to include my classes when planning the next two months at the hagwon, despite all the exclamations of "teamwork." let it be known, a huge reason that i took this job was because it provided the materials for classes. no prep work. the thought of prep work makes me at least consider having a panic attack. it's not that i can't come up with anything, it's that i can't focus on anything. i sort of see all topics as inextricably linked and can't really pull myself out of the mindset of a "native speaker" to acknowledge how there might be a linear order to how an esl learner actually, well, learns. anyhoo, i could expound upon this, but it probably doesn't mean anything to anyone who doesn't work at my clusterfuck of a job right now.
it's just bizarre because the first 6 months of this gig were systematic, the epitome of order. i suppose i had an undue amount of confidence in my skills after pretty much owning all my classes. and with no other foreign teachers' methods by which to gauge mine, i looked like a fucking saint. now i'm given new books, new teachers and a whole new system to which none of the other "real" teachers gave any consideration. most of the time 10 minutes before class starts. fucking frustrating.
i'm teaching mostly elementary students these days. which i actually prefer, despite the fact that i'm still unsure what/how to use the materials. it's bizarre that these kids at my school see me and communicate with me on a more regular basis than any other humans on the planet. geez, now that i put it that way it is pretty remarkable. the kids are there 4 days a week for intensives. so i see them all, at least in passing, every day that i'm at work. my favorite classes are the ones with my youngest kids. 5 little 4th grade boys that make me not mind being in this cult-like atmosphere. they're just so earnest and creative. it's strange to have the opportunity to teach a class of elementary school esl learners that actually calms me down. i would never have imagined that was possible.
i've sunk back to this feeling of just barely hanging in there every day. somewhere there's a poster of a kitten hanging from a tree, or maybe it was some sort of primate. regardless...killing time until something jars me out of this complacency. there are days when i'm quite sure that complacency is far too kind and gentle a term for what i'm feeling, but i don't need to dwell upon that here. i wish there was some more eloquent, pointed way to express what i mean. of course there is, i just can't express it. as i've lamented before, i'm losing my words, yo. anyhoo, i had just started to feel shitty like this in suncheon when i left. overwhelmed by monotony, routine, boredom, the job itself, the uncertainty of everything. ironic that uncertainty brings me down, as i admittedly hate routines. and what's more certain than a routine? now i'm not sure what exactly is going to pull me out of the funk.
been reading a good book recently, that i would probably never have thought to pick up of my own accord. the glass bead game by herman hesse. i vaguely recall reading siddhartha in high school, or maybe that was one of many books i was sposed to read but never actually finished. seems like that bad habit never really stopped upon entering college, so the irony of ultimately becoming an english lit major is all the more striking. most notably in my one faulkner class. i wrote some pretty great papers having never actually completed a faulkner title. i digress...
anyhoo, there's a passage in the hesse that seems particularly noteworthy in the context of my life abroad, and how i felt when i left missouri in the first place:
"this matter of not being able to understand may not be as drastic as you make it out. of course two peoples and two languages will never be able to communicate with each other so intimately as two individuals who belong to the same nation and speak the same language. but that is no reason to forgo the effort at communication. within nations there are also barriers which stand in the way of complete communication and complete mutual understanding, barriers of culture, education, talent, individuality. it might be asserted that every human being on earth can fundamentally hold a dialogue with every other human being, and it might also be asserted that there are no two persons in the world between whom genuine, whole, intimate understanding is possible--the one statement is as true as the other."
sort of touches upon lots o' themes i've been trying to reconcile for a while now. i get the feeling i'll never sort out the notions of transience vs.settling (whether in the vein of locations or relationships)--contextualized by this everpresent confict of communication and relatability. maybe that's a good thing. keeps me on my toes. also makes me feel like i'm constantly killing time until whatever the next step is...
anyhoo, that's what's going on in my brain. as far as my social life, i've been drinking a lot more lately than i had for a long time. strange how drinking copious amounts of alcohol is what keeps me feeling the most sane. the most human. and since i am a human, it's good to feel like it sometimes, however infrequently.
speaking of meat (always the best of segues...), i edited several essays yesterday about things that kids like. high on the list of "likes" was "pig meat." call me crazy, but i think that's funny. easily entertained these days. cabin fever. or i guess "english academy in korea with only one native speaker" fever, in this case.
i must at this point note that all my korean co-workers are great, and communication really isn't a problem (duh, they're english teachers), but there's definitely this insurmountable "otherness" that i think we all feel but fail to acknowledge. but i guess why would we acknowledge it...
these days in particular, their very efforts at friendship and inclusion are ultimately repellent to me when i've already been at work for at least 12 hours. i think they're weirded out that i don't want to eat lunch with them, or hang out after work. but after spending that much time with the same people and in a particular building, when extrication becomes permissible, then fuck yeah i'm leaving.
so yes, i've been in a foul mood, due mostly in part to the jobby job. other stuff too that i'll save for myself, as a result of living too much in my head. as for the job, it's all confusion as of late, and as soon as i start to feel like i know what the hell i'm doing, my co-workers change something again. apparently no one thought to include my classes when planning the next two months at the hagwon, despite all the exclamations of "teamwork." let it be known, a huge reason that i took this job was because it provided the materials for classes. no prep work. the thought of prep work makes me at least consider having a panic attack. it's not that i can't come up with anything, it's that i can't focus on anything. i sort of see all topics as inextricably linked and can't really pull myself out of the mindset of a "native speaker" to acknowledge how there might be a linear order to how an esl learner actually, well, learns. anyhoo, i could expound upon this, but it probably doesn't mean anything to anyone who doesn't work at my clusterfuck of a job right now.
it's just bizarre because the first 6 months of this gig were systematic, the epitome of order. i suppose i had an undue amount of confidence in my skills after pretty much owning all my classes. and with no other foreign teachers' methods by which to gauge mine, i looked like a fucking saint. now i'm given new books, new teachers and a whole new system to which none of the other "real" teachers gave any consideration. most of the time 10 minutes before class starts. fucking frustrating.
i'm teaching mostly elementary students these days. which i actually prefer, despite the fact that i'm still unsure what/how to use the materials. it's bizarre that these kids at my school see me and communicate with me on a more regular basis than any other humans on the planet. geez, now that i put it that way it is pretty remarkable. the kids are there 4 days a week for intensives. so i see them all, at least in passing, every day that i'm at work. my favorite classes are the ones with my youngest kids. 5 little 4th grade boys that make me not mind being in this cult-like atmosphere. they're just so earnest and creative. it's strange to have the opportunity to teach a class of elementary school esl learners that actually calms me down. i would never have imagined that was possible.
i've sunk back to this feeling of just barely hanging in there every day. somewhere there's a poster of a kitten hanging from a tree, or maybe it was some sort of primate. regardless...killing time until something jars me out of this complacency. there are days when i'm quite sure that complacency is far too kind and gentle a term for what i'm feeling, but i don't need to dwell upon that here. i wish there was some more eloquent, pointed way to express what i mean. of course there is, i just can't express it. as i've lamented before, i'm losing my words, yo. anyhoo, i had just started to feel shitty like this in suncheon when i left. overwhelmed by monotony, routine, boredom, the job itself, the uncertainty of everything. ironic that uncertainty brings me down, as i admittedly hate routines. and what's more certain than a routine? now i'm not sure what exactly is going to pull me out of the funk.
been reading a good book recently, that i would probably never have thought to pick up of my own accord. the glass bead game by herman hesse. i vaguely recall reading siddhartha in high school, or maybe that was one of many books i was sposed to read but never actually finished. seems like that bad habit never really stopped upon entering college, so the irony of ultimately becoming an english lit major is all the more striking. most notably in my one faulkner class. i wrote some pretty great papers having never actually completed a faulkner title. i digress...
anyhoo, there's a passage in the hesse that seems particularly noteworthy in the context of my life abroad, and how i felt when i left missouri in the first place:
"this matter of not being able to understand may not be as drastic as you make it out. of course two peoples and two languages will never be able to communicate with each other so intimately as two individuals who belong to the same nation and speak the same language. but that is no reason to forgo the effort at communication. within nations there are also barriers which stand in the way of complete communication and complete mutual understanding, barriers of culture, education, talent, individuality. it might be asserted that every human being on earth can fundamentally hold a dialogue with every other human being, and it might also be asserted that there are no two persons in the world between whom genuine, whole, intimate understanding is possible--the one statement is as true as the other."
sort of touches upon lots o' themes i've been trying to reconcile for a while now. i get the feeling i'll never sort out the notions of transience vs.settling (whether in the vein of locations or relationships)--contextualized by this everpresent confict of communication and relatability. maybe that's a good thing. keeps me on my toes. also makes me feel like i'm constantly killing time until whatever the next step is...
anyhoo, that's what's going on in my brain. as far as my social life, i've been drinking a lot more lately than i had for a long time. strange how drinking copious amounts of alcohol is what keeps me feeling the most sane. the most human. and since i am a human, it's good to feel like it sometimes, however infrequently.
Monday, January 07, 2008
little people
it's sort of funny how you can go weeks of your life--months, even--without seeing a dwarf, and then yesterday i saw three of them at/in varying times and locations.
'twas a lucrative sunday.
'twas a lucrative sunday.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
things
i am unlucky. and also lacking in common sense. there are many situations in recent memory to corroborate such statements.
before i start that, i should mention that i never did go see basement jaxx. bummer. but i guess it was nice to not throw down 40 bucks just to get in.
okay, back to me being an idiot...
the most obvious illustration of my shortcomings comes in gloved form. for my birthday i received a beautiful, girly pair of women's gloves from my co-workers. lined with fur and everything. i like the word "fur." keep in mind, my birthday was less than a month ago. my co-workers made sure to inform me of said gloves' priciness, which i thought of every time i squeezed my large man paws into them. unfortunately, the night i decided to stay out at the club until the wee hours of the morning, my gloves didn't make it home with me. i was very sad, mostly because i knew that my co-workers would notice if i didn't have them. so i bought another pair exactly like them. after dropping $50 on a pair of gloves i would never have otherwise thought to purchase for myself, i realized the next day that these gloves were black, when the birthday ones i lost were brown. fuck. i spent about 5 minutes, turning these black gloves in the light, trying to convince myself that they were actually brown. before i even had a chance to take them back and exchange them, i mysteriously lost one. so now, i've lost the second pair, or rather, half of the second pair. i'm forced to acknowledge my own stupidity every time i look at that lone glove sitting on my kitchen table. i'm still optimistic and am officially labeling the other glove "misplaced" for now. we shall see....
more evidence of me being real dumb: a few weeks ago i was at the coex mall. i went to an atm. when the time came for me to buy movie tickets, i realized i had no money. i'd removed my card and the receipt, but left the money in the machine. idiot. magically, the money was sucked back up, so it didn't really hurt me at all financially. however, there was another human present, who got to witness the whole panicked, hungover scenario (yes, the same coex mall that i barfed in. same day, actually. class act.). not my proudest moment.
also, i trip a lot over things both real and imagined.
on an unrelated note, i forgot to mention a memorable taxi ride, one of many i've had here in the korea. i was in a cab with two other foreigners and the driver was pretty excited about clayton's korean speaking skills. they got to talking and the driver wanted to know what "oh shit" handles were called in english (i don't remember the korean phrase). so the driver started exaggerating his turns so we'd grab the handles yelling "oh shit!" good eats.
in more recent news, i had a pretty good weekend. had a killer cold for the majority of last week, snot oozing continually and an attractively-chafed nose. but by saturday, i was ready to drink free alcohol at my school's christmas party. it was mostly for all the korean teachers, but we foreigners were invited as a gesture of good will. i've found that "free beer" and "good will" sound remarkably similar...so i went to work on saturday, then sat around waiting for the other teachers so we could practice the requisite skit for our branch of the hagwon. it was pretty cool that they involved me in it in the first place. even if it was to read an uber cheesy quote from the movie serendipity. whatever. it all turned out well....
got to the party around 6, then started pounding down beer with the few other foreign teachers who decided to show up. whatever, i'll travel an hour and a half on the subway if the pot of gold is actually a pint glass full of good german beer. at some point shots of tequila entered into the picture, not sure if that was before or after my school's skit. before i'd seen any of the other branch's performances, i was pretty confident in ours, as it told a story and then ended with some cheesy stuff about love. but these other branches weren't fucking around with their skits. lots of choreography and magic. who'd've thunk?
after i sprayed fake snow in an innocent bystander's eye, i knew i was ready for my big moment as an angel spreading christmas cheer in an aerosol can. shortly after the skit and after drinking many more tequila shots, decided to leave the party with some of the other foreign teachers. regrettably, i didn't say goodbye to any of my teachers (keep in mind, there are literally 100s of korean teachers there and about 6 foreign teachers). but i was pretty lit at that point and didn't want to embarass myself. made the bad decision to go to itaewon. it was fine. i really liked the people i was with, but it's always the same reaction as soon as i get there "oh yeah, i remember why i hate this place" (same reaction when i rang in christmas in itaewon). i got a guilt trip about leaving on monday, which i only took a little seriously. my coworker said "we're sposed to be a team." it's a nice idea, but i'm kept out of the loop about so many things that i'm a little skeptical of the team spirit angle.
next day i got drunk in the afternoon, ate copious amounts of meat, went bowling with friends, and watched american gangster. all in all, a pretty great sunday.
on christmas eve i didn't have any plans but decided at the last minute that getting drunk in itaweon sounded like SOMETHING to do at least. so met up with some friends. eventually ended up at a club until the wee hours of the morning. something that's happened, astonishingly, twice in the past month. i'm really a terrible dancer, and yet there i was, dancing like an idiot for an extended amount of time. it was good. after we left the club, some nerdy, drunk foreigner felt like starting a fight with us on hooker hill. of course we avoided it, but only narrowly. i don't even remember what he said that started it all. just some drunk, belligerent guy, like every other drunk, belligerent guy in itaewon.
on christmas i worked from 4:30-10:30. and i was amazed at how many kids actually came to school on christmas. it's a holiday here, too. and there are just as many overzealous christians here as in america.
last triviality. i made a pretty cool discovery. after already exploring the flavor of "banana milk" i branched out yesterday and have stumbled across a drink that tastes exactly like the residual milk in an eaten bowl of captain crunch. raspberry milk. hells yeah.
before i start that, i should mention that i never did go see basement jaxx. bummer. but i guess it was nice to not throw down 40 bucks just to get in.
okay, back to me being an idiot...
the most obvious illustration of my shortcomings comes in gloved form. for my birthday i received a beautiful, girly pair of women's gloves from my co-workers. lined with fur and everything. i like the word "fur." keep in mind, my birthday was less than a month ago. my co-workers made sure to inform me of said gloves' priciness, which i thought of every time i squeezed my large man paws into them. unfortunately, the night i decided to stay out at the club until the wee hours of the morning, my gloves didn't make it home with me. i was very sad, mostly because i knew that my co-workers would notice if i didn't have them. so i bought another pair exactly like them. after dropping $50 on a pair of gloves i would never have otherwise thought to purchase for myself, i realized the next day that these gloves were black, when the birthday ones i lost were brown. fuck. i spent about 5 minutes, turning these black gloves in the light, trying to convince myself that they were actually brown. before i even had a chance to take them back and exchange them, i mysteriously lost one. so now, i've lost the second pair, or rather, half of the second pair. i'm forced to acknowledge my own stupidity every time i look at that lone glove sitting on my kitchen table. i'm still optimistic and am officially labeling the other glove "misplaced" for now. we shall see....
more evidence of me being real dumb: a few weeks ago i was at the coex mall. i went to an atm. when the time came for me to buy movie tickets, i realized i had no money. i'd removed my card and the receipt, but left the money in the machine. idiot. magically, the money was sucked back up, so it didn't really hurt me at all financially. however, there was another human present, who got to witness the whole panicked, hungover scenario (yes, the same coex mall that i barfed in. same day, actually. class act.). not my proudest moment.
also, i trip a lot over things both real and imagined.
on an unrelated note, i forgot to mention a memorable taxi ride, one of many i've had here in the korea. i was in a cab with two other foreigners and the driver was pretty excited about clayton's korean speaking skills. they got to talking and the driver wanted to know what "oh shit" handles were called in english (i don't remember the korean phrase). so the driver started exaggerating his turns so we'd grab the handles yelling "oh shit!" good eats.
in more recent news, i had a pretty good weekend. had a killer cold for the majority of last week, snot oozing continually and an attractively-chafed nose. but by saturday, i was ready to drink free alcohol at my school's christmas party. it was mostly for all the korean teachers, but we foreigners were invited as a gesture of good will. i've found that "free beer" and "good will" sound remarkably similar...so i went to work on saturday, then sat around waiting for the other teachers so we could practice the requisite skit for our branch of the hagwon. it was pretty cool that they involved me in it in the first place. even if it was to read an uber cheesy quote from the movie serendipity. whatever. it all turned out well....
got to the party around 6, then started pounding down beer with the few other foreign teachers who decided to show up. whatever, i'll travel an hour and a half on the subway if the pot of gold is actually a pint glass full of good german beer. at some point shots of tequila entered into the picture, not sure if that was before or after my school's skit. before i'd seen any of the other branch's performances, i was pretty confident in ours, as it told a story and then ended with some cheesy stuff about love. but these other branches weren't fucking around with their skits. lots of choreography and magic. who'd've thunk?
after i sprayed fake snow in an innocent bystander's eye, i knew i was ready for my big moment as an angel spreading christmas cheer in an aerosol can. shortly after the skit and after drinking many more tequila shots, decided to leave the party with some of the other foreign teachers. regrettably, i didn't say goodbye to any of my teachers (keep in mind, there are literally 100s of korean teachers there and about 6 foreign teachers). but i was pretty lit at that point and didn't want to embarass myself. made the bad decision to go to itaewon. it was fine. i really liked the people i was with, but it's always the same reaction as soon as i get there "oh yeah, i remember why i hate this place" (same reaction when i rang in christmas in itaewon). i got a guilt trip about leaving on monday, which i only took a little seriously. my coworker said "we're sposed to be a team." it's a nice idea, but i'm kept out of the loop about so many things that i'm a little skeptical of the team spirit angle.
next day i got drunk in the afternoon, ate copious amounts of meat, went bowling with friends, and watched american gangster. all in all, a pretty great sunday.
on christmas eve i didn't have any plans but decided at the last minute that getting drunk in itaweon sounded like SOMETHING to do at least. so met up with some friends. eventually ended up at a club until the wee hours of the morning. something that's happened, astonishingly, twice in the past month. i'm really a terrible dancer, and yet there i was, dancing like an idiot for an extended amount of time. it was good. after we left the club, some nerdy, drunk foreigner felt like starting a fight with us on hooker hill. of course we avoided it, but only narrowly. i don't even remember what he said that started it all. just some drunk, belligerent guy, like every other drunk, belligerent guy in itaewon.
on christmas i worked from 4:30-10:30. and i was amazed at how many kids actually came to school on christmas. it's a holiday here, too. and there are just as many overzealous christians here as in america.
last triviality. i made a pretty cool discovery. after already exploring the flavor of "banana milk" i branched out yesterday and have stumbled across a drink that tastes exactly like the residual milk in an eaten bowl of captain crunch. raspberry milk. hells yeah.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
i believe i can fly. also, it snowed today. hooray.
so i have some things to talk about. nothing too exciting, but notable as actual qualitative events have recently dotted the otherwise bland horizon of my life. always good to start melodramatically...i'll attribute any forthcoming wordiness to the caffeine. i've noticed that i tend to be a lot happier in general whilst highly caffeinated. that's the nature of addiction, i suppose. yes, my bout of insomnia ended a while ago, so i'm back on the juice. which is why i'm awake right now.
last weekend was a crazy one, at least seen/felt through the eyes and insanely dancing limbs of this not quite old person. firday night i did the usual round of teaching and wanting to pull my chalk-laden hair out by the end of it all (yes, we have ACTUAL chalkboards, which i thoroughly enjoy. something about a whiteboard makes the whole teaching experience less authentic. but yeah, chalk + long hair + light facial perspiration don't mix).
it's been really hard for me these past few weeks to adjust to 4 days of a light work schedule and then teaching 6 hours in a row (out of a book whose vagaries don't really inspire too much confidence) on fridays. i love all my elementary school students, but it requires an energy that i'm not really required to muster too much the rest of the week. yes, i'm complaining about having to actually apply myself. sometimes i'm just not in the mood, particularly when autopilot mode for the middle schoolers is so, well, automatic.
anyway, back to weekend shenanigans. i really should find another word for "shenanigans". i've become too attached...
saturday afternoon after teaching, decided to meet up with a friend for some culture. because cultural things totally fucking rule. first things first when planning any sort of outing: afternoon beers to motivate and mentally prepare oneself for the sensory experience of said culture. after liquid motivation, made our way to the van gogh exhibit. i've mused before on the spectacle that is an art museum in korea (monet and what appeared to be a play date organized by all the mothers of seoul). van gogh wasn't really too different. super crowded, people using their purses and children to nudge others out of the way. and just so those guilty parties know, there's nothing discreet about your maneuvering. i'm privy to your methods.
post van gogh, went to a hookah bar in hongdae. we were the first people there. i guess 8ish isn't universal hookah hour. i don't know what or when the hip kids do [things] these days. still learning...
after hookah went foraging for food. my friend who is a smoker informed me that our chosen order of events was faulty. apparently, eat first, then hookah. next time. we eventually ended up at a chinese place. it was a good way to test my korean skills when the server brought out a dish that i didn't order. a dish that made my face feel like it was melting off. i like spicy food, but for fuck's sake! this is a point where i should edit myself. does anyone really care what i ate for dinner last saturday night? if you do, please let me know. i'm genuinely curious...
after that i assumed the night would end at a drinking establishment of some sort. after an adventurous taxi ride in which we foreigners were fucked over to the tune of 10 bones, met up with my friend clayton (who likes it when i actually use his name when i reference him). drank more beer and ate fondu-ish fruits. i've found that fondu is a good side when drinking copious amounts of alcohol. actually, that makes it sound like i've ever eaten fondu prior to this occassion. i'm a liar. clayton thought a club might be a good idea. fudge a dudge.
so we ended up in gangnam outside "club mass." i had a phase in college where i enjoyed going to these kind of clubs and listening to house music and jungle music and other music that usually really annoys the shit out of me now. i also wore extremely baggy pants with lots o' zippers and made many a bad decision that it's best to only vaguely reference at this point. i'd like to think i'm good at that (vague references).
so we end up at club mass. i walk in and am instantly greeted by the bowel-shaking beats of some long-haired white dj. it was at this point that i said to myself "fuck, what the fuck am i fucking doing here?" so maybe those weren't the exact words, but you get the idea. i'm not really a dancer, but at a place like this you can't just stand there. so i bit the bullet and danced my arse off. to the tune of really regretting it later. hindsight embarassment is 20/20? i guess i didn't really do anything too laughable besides dance in the first place. and i think it's true that there always is someone worse at something than i am. middle of the road is precisely where i best function.
so we were ultimately at the club for about 6 hours. it goes without saying that sleep was in order. so i slept until 5 pm the next day. shitballs, i haven't done that in a long time. tried to salvage the evening, so went and saw "michael clayton", but not before barfing in a random bathroom in the coex mall. classy lassy, all the way.
so that was the good weekend. i believe i'm set for some sort of repeat tomorrow night. going back to the same club to see basement jaxx. that sure takes me back to the raver days of yore. once again, those baggy pants and questionable activities...ahhh, good times.
in other news, i would be remiss not to mention the highlight of my day on wednesday. these days at work i have this special 2 hour speaking class that i really really hate. sometimes 6 kids will show up. sometimes 2. and in my all too real nightmares...1 student. this was a 2 student day. and i decided that "special speaking class" really means twister and teaching my kids how to play spoons. so i brought in twister and played with these elementary school girls. as the younger of the two kids was flailing helplessly on the floor, she started singing, ever so earnestly, "i believe i can fly" at the top of her lungs. and that, in all its innocence, was the highlight of my day. shit, maybe even the highlight of the week. tomorrow something amazing has to happen to top it.
last weekend was a crazy one, at least seen/felt through the eyes and insanely dancing limbs of this not quite old person. firday night i did the usual round of teaching and wanting to pull my chalk-laden hair out by the end of it all (yes, we have ACTUAL chalkboards, which i thoroughly enjoy. something about a whiteboard makes the whole teaching experience less authentic. but yeah, chalk + long hair + light facial perspiration don't mix).
it's been really hard for me these past few weeks to adjust to 4 days of a light work schedule and then teaching 6 hours in a row (out of a book whose vagaries don't really inspire too much confidence) on fridays. i love all my elementary school students, but it requires an energy that i'm not really required to muster too much the rest of the week. yes, i'm complaining about having to actually apply myself. sometimes i'm just not in the mood, particularly when autopilot mode for the middle schoolers is so, well, automatic.
anyway, back to weekend shenanigans. i really should find another word for "shenanigans". i've become too attached...
saturday afternoon after teaching, decided to meet up with a friend for some culture. because cultural things totally fucking rule. first things first when planning any sort of outing: afternoon beers to motivate and mentally prepare oneself for the sensory experience of said culture. after liquid motivation, made our way to the van gogh exhibit. i've mused before on the spectacle that is an art museum in korea (monet and what appeared to be a play date organized by all the mothers of seoul). van gogh wasn't really too different. super crowded, people using their purses and children to nudge others out of the way. and just so those guilty parties know, there's nothing discreet about your maneuvering. i'm privy to your methods.
post van gogh, went to a hookah bar in hongdae. we were the first people there. i guess 8ish isn't universal hookah hour. i don't know what or when the hip kids do [things] these days. still learning...
after hookah went foraging for food. my friend who is a smoker informed me that our chosen order of events was faulty. apparently, eat first, then hookah. next time. we eventually ended up at a chinese place. it was a good way to test my korean skills when the server brought out a dish that i didn't order. a dish that made my face feel like it was melting off. i like spicy food, but for fuck's sake! this is a point where i should edit myself. does anyone really care what i ate for dinner last saturday night? if you do, please let me know. i'm genuinely curious...
after that i assumed the night would end at a drinking establishment of some sort. after an adventurous taxi ride in which we foreigners were fucked over to the tune of 10 bones, met up with my friend clayton (who likes it when i actually use his name when i reference him). drank more beer and ate fondu-ish fruits. i've found that fondu is a good side when drinking copious amounts of alcohol. actually, that makes it sound like i've ever eaten fondu prior to this occassion. i'm a liar. clayton thought a club might be a good idea. fudge a dudge.
so we ended up in gangnam outside "club mass." i had a phase in college where i enjoyed going to these kind of clubs and listening to house music and jungle music and other music that usually really annoys the shit out of me now. i also wore extremely baggy pants with lots o' zippers and made many a bad decision that it's best to only vaguely reference at this point. i'd like to think i'm good at that (vague references).
so we end up at club mass. i walk in and am instantly greeted by the bowel-shaking beats of some long-haired white dj. it was at this point that i said to myself "fuck, what the fuck am i fucking doing here?" so maybe those weren't the exact words, but you get the idea. i'm not really a dancer, but at a place like this you can't just stand there. so i bit the bullet and danced my arse off. to the tune of really regretting it later. hindsight embarassment is 20/20? i guess i didn't really do anything too laughable besides dance in the first place. and i think it's true that there always is someone worse at something than i am. middle of the road is precisely where i best function.
so we were ultimately at the club for about 6 hours. it goes without saying that sleep was in order. so i slept until 5 pm the next day. shitballs, i haven't done that in a long time. tried to salvage the evening, so went and saw "michael clayton", but not before barfing in a random bathroom in the coex mall. classy lassy, all the way.
so that was the good weekend. i believe i'm set for some sort of repeat tomorrow night. going back to the same club to see basement jaxx. that sure takes me back to the raver days of yore. once again, those baggy pants and questionable activities...ahhh, good times.
in other news, i would be remiss not to mention the highlight of my day on wednesday. these days at work i have this special 2 hour speaking class that i really really hate. sometimes 6 kids will show up. sometimes 2. and in my all too real nightmares...1 student. this was a 2 student day. and i decided that "special speaking class" really means twister and teaching my kids how to play spoons. so i brought in twister and played with these elementary school girls. as the younger of the two kids was flailing helplessly on the floor, she started singing, ever so earnestly, "i believe i can fly" at the top of her lungs. and that, in all its innocence, was the highlight of my day. shit, maybe even the highlight of the week. tomorrow something amazing has to happen to top it.
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